First broadcast in 1979, Mike Leigh's 'Who's Who' is another episode of Play for Today he wrote and directed for the BBC. It isn't one of his more well-known works, possibly because it is a rare (for him) satirical look at people on both sides of the class divide and class envy. Unusually, none of the characters are overtly working class and as a result, he feels somewhat out of his comfort zone, but the play is not only entertaining in spite of that, it is frequently very amusing.
'Who's Who' broadly follows three people who work at different levels in a brokerage house: the middle class Alan; the upper-middle class Nigel; and senior partner Francis, who moves in rather higher circles when he is asked to help out Lord and Lady Crouchurst. The main protagonist is Alan, played by Richard Kane. Obsessed with Royalty and the peerage, Alan is a buffoon, a sycophant who idolises those he sees as his betters, and whose pomposity is the source of much humour, along with his cat-obsessed and rather dim wife Ethel. Alan shakes with emotion when he receives the signed photograph of Margaret Thatcher - "a very handsome woman" - that he ordered through the mail, and on sensing that Ethel's visitor Miss Hunt is posh, he becomes astoundingly obsequious. He subsequently insistently shows his signed photograph collection to an increasingly bored and agitated photographer Mr Shakespeare (played the great Sam Kelly), completely oblivious to the effect his having. His bubble of self-importance is only punctured by the mischievous mocking of his young co-worker Kevin, played by a very young (and cast against later type) Phil Davis.
The other characters don't work quite as well, partly because Leigh - and of course the cast members who as per his usual approach helped to develop their characters - stereotype the upper-middle and upper classes in a way that might have been decried had the working classes been the target. Thus we have the uptight Nigel and his slovenly flatmate Giles, both of them young, posh and vastly less intelligent than either of them would like to believe. Nigel spends much of the episode organising a dinner party, which turns into a humiliating embarrassment when he is forced to serve tinned soup and sets the cutlery out wrong. Lord and Lady Crouchurst are reserved and dull, leaving their nanny to mind their child whilst they compare their diaries, but unfortunately their scenes as dull as they are.
In spite of this, the cast members are all excellent, Leigh's traditional approach really allowing them room to literally make their characters their own, and whilst the characters might feel like caricatures, the performances are somehow all still believable nonetheless. It helps of course that Leigh's knack for directing is in evidence, with an episode shot largely on location and camera work that focuses almost exclusively on the actors. Close-ups of cats and objects are used to emphasise their importance to the story. 'Who's Who' is not essential Mike Leigh by any means, but for fans of his work it is certainly worth watching.
'Who's Who' broadly follows three people who work at different levels in a brokerage house: the middle class Alan; the upper-middle class Nigel; and senior partner Francis, who moves in rather higher circles when he is asked to help out Lord and Lady Crouchurst. The main protagonist is Alan, played by Richard Kane. Obsessed with Royalty and the peerage, Alan is a buffoon, a sycophant who idolises those he sees as his betters, and whose pomposity is the source of much humour, along with his cat-obsessed and rather dim wife Ethel. Alan shakes with emotion when he receives the signed photograph of Margaret Thatcher - "a very handsome woman" - that he ordered through the mail, and on sensing that Ethel's visitor Miss Hunt is posh, he becomes astoundingly obsequious. He subsequently insistently shows his signed photograph collection to an increasingly bored and agitated photographer Mr Shakespeare (played the great Sam Kelly), completely oblivious to the effect his having. His bubble of self-importance is only punctured by the mischievous mocking of his young co-worker Kevin, played by a very young (and cast against later type) Phil Davis.
The other characters don't work quite as well, partly because Leigh - and of course the cast members who as per his usual approach helped to develop their characters - stereotype the upper-middle and upper classes in a way that might have been decried had the working classes been the target. Thus we have the uptight Nigel and his slovenly flatmate Giles, both of them young, posh and vastly less intelligent than either of them would like to believe. Nigel spends much of the episode organising a dinner party, which turns into a humiliating embarrassment when he is forced to serve tinned soup and sets the cutlery out wrong. Lord and Lady Crouchurst are reserved and dull, leaving their nanny to mind their child whilst they compare their diaries, but unfortunately their scenes as dull as they are.
In spite of this, the cast members are all excellent, Leigh's traditional approach really allowing them room to literally make their characters their own, and whilst the characters might feel like caricatures, the performances are somehow all still believable nonetheless. It helps of course that Leigh's knack for directing is in evidence, with an episode shot largely on location and camera work that focuses almost exclusively on the actors. Close-ups of cats and objects are used to emphasise their importance to the story. 'Who's Who' is not essential Mike Leigh by any means, but for fans of his work it is certainly worth watching.