Roadkill: Episode 2

 "You think you're too popular to be sacked."

It's odd. There's a lot going on here, the plot is nice and intricate- very  State of Play, still- and there's some nice social commentary, if a bit broad brush, particularly into the Tory psyche. The cast is excellent. But something isn't quite clicking with me, and I'm unsure what.So much happens. Arch-privatiser Peter shows us the other side of his libertarianism with his very sensible thoughts on prison reform (and, privately, drug law reform), but the PM slaps him down. Sensible, humane criminal justice policy may be de rigueur in the rest of Europe but for some reason it's not how Tories, or perhaps even the British as a whole, roll.

We move on to a facinating scene in which Margaret hands some documents to Peter's former barrister- an alternative way of the truth coming out if, as seems possible, Charmian is either dead or incapacitated after being hit by a van following a very interesting and revealing evening in Washington DC. This nicely parallel's Peter's crash at the end when Duncan tells him (having done a swtcheroo of DNA, interestingly) that the myserious young woman in pison is indeed his daughter. Meanwhile, Peter's acknowledged daughter manages to uncover the fact he has a girlfriend and is delightfully pragmatic about the way she handles it.

And there are lots of other little revelations and, indeed, character moments. On the surface it all seems very good, and Hugh Laurie in particular is superb. And yet I'm not sure I feel invested in any of the characters. It's a clever script, but seems more about ideas than people. I'm not sure that should necessarily matter enormously in a political drama, but this seems to be structured, with dramatic beats, as though it should.

Let's see how this goes.

Roadkill: Episode 1

 "Voters think of me as a character..."

So, alternating with the crown, I'll be blogging this very current political thriller from David Hare, starring Hugh Laurie as exactly the sort of morally dodgy character he's been playing of late. First impressions are extremely promising: an intricate yet clear plot that reminds me of State of Play while being very much of our time.

We first meet ambitious Tory transport minister Peter Laurence immediately after he's won a libel case and makes a speech on the steps which has to have been intended to echo Jonathan Aitken, bavk in the Major years back in that innocent era when Toty misisters would actually resign for misdeeds and the concept of absolute truth was rather more fashionable than it is now. But, well, he's essentially Boris Johnson, isn't he? A shagger, a "character", a man with no pirnciples.... although, it seems, Peter is at once more criminal and much more competent than Boris.

It says a lot for Hare's script that there are lots of characters and many moving parts here, but things are never hard to follow. The cast is superb. The hero is clearly Sarah Greene's investigative journalist Charmian,humanised as a recovering alcoholic, but also impressive are Helen McRory as a delightfully machiavellian prime minister and Pip Torrens as a cynical newspaper editor. The direction is excellent yet unobtrusive, and it's nice to see a variety of locations from a prison to a club where young people dance to The Fall's "Totally Wired". Where were these places when I was their age?

A very promising start. Early days, but this could prove to be something special.

The Crown: Season 2, Episode 7- Matrimonium

"As in art, so, it would appear, in life..."

Again we have a Margaret episode and, again, there is much subtlety and character development. Like ast episode, the plot is simple; Margaret is to marry Tony who, we now see, is sectretly carrying on polyamorous relationships with both sexes and, moreover, is rather more damaged than he might appear. Yet Elizabeth, even after hearing the truth from Tommy Lascelles- again brought out of retirement to do what Michael cannot- is unable, after what happened with Peter Townsend, to say no. And the baby to whom she gives birth here will one day be mixed up with sexual doings that are a thousand times worse.

The episode abounds, as ever, with lovely character moments on which we can dwell as we hope that Margaret won't get hurt. The scene between Margaret and Elizabeth at the end is fascinating- Margaret wants freedom and independence, and is marrying this man as part of that. Yet she, unlike the Queen, enjos the titles and the deference and will never give up those things- a necessary precondition for any royal to break free of their life sentence in a gilded cage.

We get an outburst from Philip, last season a victim of snobbery himself, yet looking down on Tony who, unlike hilself, is not the grandson of a king and a prince in his own right. Fascinatingly, we learn that the womanising Tony is the son of a vaguely neglectful mother who left his commoner father to marry an earl, and his younger half-brother outranks him- until he marries Margaret. Deliciously, we hear this as Tony, along with the Frys with whom he is having a bisexual menage a trois, watches the results of the 1959 election as Supermac crushes all before him in a country that has never had it so good.

It is also jarring to see Macmillan lead the Cabinet in prayer upon hearing of the royal baby. 1959 was a different world, albeit a changing one, more religious than ours on the surface- but perhaps not much deeper than that; and where conservative social mores on the surface are not applied to the discreet elite.

A superb hour of drama, as always.

The Deep Blue Sea (National Theatre, 2016)

"When you're between any kind of devil and the deep blue sea, the deep blue sea sometimes looks very inviting."

I haven't managed to keep up with these wonderful lockdown gifts from the National Theatre, what with life being so very hectic these days, but they really are so kind to us, and really do need all the support they can get right now. Culture matters.

I’ve never seen this play before and nor, I’m afraid to say, have I seen any Terence Rattigan before. It may be terribly upper middle class, but this play is wonderful in how it deals with such deep, overwhelming emotion through the medium of deliberately awkward, very British dialogue. Perhaps our distance from the play helps us to see it more clearly; certainly 1952 is made to seem a long time ago. Restrictive divorce laws; suicide being a crime for which one can be imprisoned; the same for homosexuality, particularly resonant for the author and (it’s implied) for poor Dr Miller, who may perhaps be seen as the authorial voice. We are fortunate to live in the wake of the 1960s when these wrongs where righted.

Helen McRory is simply outrageously good here in the meatiest of female roles. As much of a revelation to me, though, is the play itself. The style may be old-fashioned, and the treatment of the themes may jar with our mores of today, although it’s fascinating to see how subtly subversive the play is. Rattigan is a writer I shall have to explore.