A Very English Scandal

[fuzzy]

Episode 3 of 3 to air on Sunday.

Hugh Grant as Jeremy Thorpe and Ben Whishaw as Norman Scott in the TV adaptation of John Prestons book relating to the scandal about Thorpes alleged plot to kill his former lover Scott to protect his political career.

Hugh is VERY different to his usual bumbling bufoon in this and, at times the programme is quite darkly comic.

I enjoyed eps. 1 and 2 and am looking forward to 3.

In addition, it is a pity Grant is a man if his time. He would make a perfect BoJo in any future drama adaptation of whatever that idiot gets up to.

edited to add: Written for TV by Russel T Davies so no surprise that it is watchable

[Mr Larrington]

Professor Larrington endorses this distascopic presentation, though commented that it jumps around a bit so they have to keep pausing it to check Wikinaccurate to see which year they're in.  This is what comes of being married to an historian.

[mattc]

Hugh is VERY different to his usual bumbling bufoon in this and, at times the programme is quite darkly comic.

Oh god yes! The Times reviewer made the comment about how sinister he is in the bedroom scenes - and imagine The Handmaids Tale with Grant playing the Commander 

[rogerzilla]

The scandal inspired one of Doc Cox's odder side projects.

https://youtu.be/S9MSka2l51A

[Croft]

Very highly recommended. In my view, probably the best television the BBC has produced for many years.

I loved the tone which was on the surface often a playful jaunty nostalgiafest, but not far below was the grim claustrophobic reality of emotionally repressed, class dominated, homophobic Britain in the 1960s and 70s. The third episode in particular involved a clever and subtle shift in tone that left you thinking "Wait ... what?" as the full might of the establishment asserts itself.

I'd also strongly recommend watching Tom Mangold's Panorama on the scandal, which was destroyed by the BBC in 1979 and never shown. Thanks to an illicitly kept copy by Mangold, it was shown in a slightly edited format yesterday on BBC4 and brought up to date with some interesting recent developments. Best watched after the drama.

And also worth watching, but only after the drama, is this seven minutes of Peter Cook that manages to satirise a judgement that was itself almost beyond satire.

[Mr Larrington]

Some clod on the BBC News Channel's review of the papers said something along the lines of "and let's not forget homosexuality was illegal back then".

How on earth did she manage to land a journalism gig on "The Times"?

[Exit Stage Left]

Some clod on the BBC News Channel's review of the papers said something along the lines of "and let's not forget homosexuality was illegal back then".

How on earth did she manage to land a journalism gig on "The Times"?

Thorpe and Scott's affair took place in 1962, when it was illegal.

[Croft]

Thorpe and Scott's affair took place in 1962, when it was illegal.

'Splained!

[Cunobelin]

It would appear tl have had unexpected consequences!!!

Police thought the suspect Andrew Newton was dea, and he is apparently alive!

[Wowbagger]

I'm in the middle of watching Tom Mangold's suppressed documentary. Gripping stuff - not least because people whom Thorpe relied upon to keep his secret - George Thomas (then a junior minister at the Home Office, later to become a legendary speaker of the HoC) and Ted Heath (Heath invited Thorpe to form a coalition after he lost the "miners' strike" election of February 1974) were both posthumously investigated over allegations of child abuse.

[rr]

It seems that I am distantly related to to Norman Scott on my mother's side.
I guess tenuous claims to fame is that way.

[Exit Stage Left]

I was intrigued by the safe at Scotland Yard, containing the incriminating files on influential figures. I think we can take it that there's nothing on Theresa May in there, or she'd have been a lot less critical of the Police over the years.

[Wowbagger]

I was intrigued by the safe at Scotland Yard, containing the incriminating files on influential figures. I think we can take it that there's nothing on Theresa May in there, or she'd have been a lot less critical of the Police over the years.

I thought she was a cereal killer.

[mattc]

It seems that I am distantly related to to Norman Scott on my mother's side.
I guess tenuous claims to fame is that way.

yebbut that's a pretty good Tenuous Claim!

[before I got a divorce, I was tenuously related to John le Mesurier - yes the Dad's Army actor, not the Thorpe affair accomplice!]

[mattc]

Very highly recommended. In my view, probably the best television the BBC has produced for many years.

I loved the tone which was on the surface often a playful jaunty nostalgiafest, but not far below was the grim claustrophobic reality of emotionally repressed, class dominated, homophobic Britain in the 1960s and 70s. The third episode in particular involved a clever and subtle shift in tone that left you thinking "Wait ... what?" as the full might of the establishment asserts itself.

I'd also strongly recommend watching Tom Mangold's Panorama on the scandal, which was destroyed by the BBC in 1979 and never shown. Thanks to an illicitly kept copy by Mangold, it was shown in a slightly edited format yesterday on BBC4 and brought up to date with some interesting recent developments. Best watched after the drama.

And also worth watching, but only after the drama, is this seven minutes of Peter Cook that manages to satirise a judgement that was itself almost beyond satire.

+1

 


(although I haven't yet watched the docco ... ]

[Pedaldog.]

I always felt sorry for Thorpe's wife. During all the scandal she must've been so hassled and confused. Probably didn't know which way to turn!




sorry.