LOVING
MISS HATTO
Sunday,
BBC1, 8:30pm
RESTLESS
Thursday
and Friday, BBC1, 9pm
DOORS
OPEN
Boxing
Day, STV, 9pm
DOCTOR
WHO
Christmas
Day, BBC1, 5:15pm
CALL
THE MIDWIFE
Christmas
Day, BBC1, 7:30pm
DOWNTON
ABBEY
Christmas
Day, STV, 8:45pm
Paul
Whitelaw
If history's taught us anything, it's
that if you stick Alfred Molina in a cardigan and ask him to play a
hapless, well-meaning man, the pathos he exudes will make a mountain
weep. Support him with a script written by Victoria Wood, and, well,
resistance is futile.
In LOVING MISS HATTO, Wood's
captivating account of the biggest fraud in classical music history,
Molina plays William Barrington-Coupe (aka 'Barrie'), an ambitious
dreamer who fooled the world into believing that his terminally ill
wife, Joyce Hatto, was one of the greatest living concert pianists.
And all of this orchestrated from a semi-detached in Hertfordshire.
His ruse – achieved simply by
passing off doctored recordings of other pianists as works by Hatto –
was eventually exposed following Joyce's death in 2006, although he
maintains to this day that she had no involvement in the scheme. Wood
understandably opts for a different view - how could Joyce not have
known what was going on? But although she depicts them as complicit,
she never passes cruel judgement. Instead, she delivers a
sympathetic, nuanced portrayal of an ordinary couple who resorted to
desperate measures in order to gain the recognition they felt they'd
been denied.
Joyce was actually a promising
concert pianist in her youth, with Barrie – despite his propensity
for getting into what he called “muddles” - an idealistic and
committed supporter of her fledgling career. But, for various
reasons, fame never arrived – at least not until decades later when
Barrie discovered the hoodwinking potential of the internet.
Wood
frames this remarkable story as a touching love affair between two
thwarted people with nothing to lose. Barrie, who's still alive,
should be pleased with her depiction of him as a decent man who only
broke the law out of love for his frustrated wife. And Wood's witty,
poignant, thoughtful screenplay, together with charming performances
from Molina and Francesca Annis - and Rory Kinnear and Maime McCoy as
their younger selves - ensure that their scam never feels like
anything more damaging than a romantic “muddle” that got out of
hand.
Adapted
by William Boyd from his own novel, RESTLESS is perhaps the
most aptly titled thriller I've ever seen. It doesn't so much test
one's patience as suffocate it. Curiously inert and stilted, it
charts the interminable saga of a female Secret Service agent, both
during World War Two and in the 'present' of the 1970s: so that's two
stubbornly paced and flabbily plotted narratives running
concurrently. It's supposed to be a compelling puzzle. It feels like
an endless, boring game of Risk.
The
problem may be that Boyd is so attached to his source material, he
was loath to cut it (both episodes are feature-length). He also fails
to invest his central character with an interesting inner life; he
simply gives us no reason to care about her. It also doesn't help
that her daughter – who plays a key role in the '70s segments –
is played by Michelle Dockery, alias Lady Mary from Downton,
an actress so stiff she makes the average corpse look like a whirling
dervish on a hotplate.
The
very definition of an insubstantial, middling bit of fluff, DOORS
OPEN is an Ian Rankin adaptation which couldn't be further
removed from the gritty world of Rebus if it was set in
Atlantis. Produced by Stephen Fry and Sandi Toksvig – she also
co-writes – it follows three friends as they undertake a benign art
heist.
Millionaire
Mike (Douglas Henshall) is doing it for memories of his ex-lover
(Being Human's Lenora Crichlow, in a thankless role); Allan
(Kenneth Collard) because the paintings are owned by the heartless
bank he's just been sacked from; and Professor Gissing (Fry) believes
he's liberating the ineffable soul of art from the clutches of
commerce. Bathed in a vaguely knockabout, overbearing sheen, it tries
desperately to pass itself off as an Edinburgh-set Hollywood romp.
But it's the sort of thing you forget about even while you're
watching.
Preview
copies of this year's DOCTOR WHO Christmas special were
unavailable at the time of writing, but as fans such as myself have
come to expect little from these invariably underwhelming festive
outings, maybe this year we'll be pleasantly surprised. I know, I
know, forever the optimist.
If
I'm being charitable, the cloying sentiment of CALL THE MIDWIFE is
slightly more palatable in a festive setting. But only slightly.
Inevitably, the Christmas Day edition of this mechanical period drama
serves up the heavily symbolic spectacle of a baby being born in a
lock-up, and shoves the midwives-as-angels angle further down our
throats than ever before. Oh, and hapless Miranda is involved in a
sub-plot involving the local nativity play. Of course she is.
If
we're talking about sumptuous Sunday period dramas, then DOWNTON
ABBEY obviously can't be beaten. But whereas Midwife
is earnest, Downton is a frantic conga-line of ludicrously
watchable toot. Previews weren't available, but we're promised a
Christmas trip to Scotland during which, I dunno, Carson and a stag
get stuck up a chimney. Probably, it doesn't matter. Merry Christmas,
everyone!
