User Reviews

The John Profumo scandal that brought down Harold MacMillan's Conservative party in the 60s, it was time for a Liberal Party Leader to launch an equally juicy tabloid-crazy trial nearly 20 years later. Jeremy Thorpe, one of the brightest lights of the Liberal party, was tried for conspiracy for hiring a team to kill a man with whom he had had a clandestine affair with, during the early 60s--years when "buggery" was considered a crime in England. Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons, The Queen) is the stylish director of this three-part series which is headed by Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw, as Thorpe and his lover, Norman Scott. The series is a heady brew of a political scandal, a troubled young man whose homosexuality was an affront to the era in general and of the upper British class represented by Thorpe, as well as the judge who presided over the trial.

I read previous reviews of this mini-series and I was appalled at the condescension handed to Hugh Grant. Perhaps it is because of his great success in the romantic comedy genre, which he has practically kept alive for the past 25 years. His mastery there shouldn't be in doubt--his outstanding work speaks for itself. But like many other fine British actors, Hugh Grant excelled in a wide variety of films. While Meryl Streep was over the top as Florence Foster Jenkins, Grant delivered a finely nuanced performance as her protective "husband", St. Clair Bayfield. All the way back to the beginning of his career, there was Maurice, which I think signaled the arrival of a really good film actor. He's hilarious as the neurasthenic Chopin in the little-seen Impromptu. He can be annoyingly reticent, as his Mr.Darcy proves in Sense & Sensibility. But his iis a singular talent that has lasted for decades. Grant brings an upper-class glamor to the part of Jeremy Thorpe, which the original didn't much possess. His power as a politician is to intimidate and Grant gives us this preening and arrogant man who abuses his power, and show that when he's thwarted, he can turn very dangerous. You believe he wants to eradicate all traces of his homosexual past. He is icy cold in his determination and refusal to buckle under the pressure he's facing. Now past his rom-com heyday, Grant is deepening his skills as a first-rate character actor, and this is good news because as a British actor, he will be given more and more parts to show us his superb capabilities.

Ben Whishaw is fantastic as Norman Scott, a young man who can't seem to figure out what to do with his life. But Scott is not the loser here. He gets his day in court and Whishaw really delivers. The rest of the cast is first-rate. There is a lot of dark humor here, and Frears finds it in a cracking script by Russel T Davies (Dr. Who, Torchwood, Queer as Folk) and John Preston, who wrote the book on which this series is based.

The court scenes are handled extremely well. Thorpe's lawyer decides not to put him on the stand, fearing he wouldn't come off very well. The judge who presided over the case was clearly against Norman Scott, whom he described as a "fraud, a sponger, a whiner and a parasite." Betraying his class affiliations in his outrageous summation, the judge concluded by saying, "but of course, he could still be telling the truth."

This is a winning mini-series that hold attention throughout. In a period when TV is easily outstripping anything you can see at the multiplex, A VERY ENGLISH SCANDAL holds it own.

I do hope that viewers of this three part BBC dramatisation of the Jeremy Thorpe / Norman Scott affair followed the station's own prompt to immediately afterwards switch channels and watch a documentary made in 1979, ready to be shown on the expected conviction of the former Liberal Party leader Thorpe. However, on his unexpected acquittal, the programme was shelved, until now obviously when it only confirms what most people thought at the time, that Thorpe was as guilty as at least two of his also now deceased party colleagues, Cyril Smith and Clement Freud, about whom as we're al! aware, post death revelations of their heinous personal conduct have also come to light. It's no coincidence that both are name-checked in this programme which perhaps saw the BBC forty years later right its own wrong in not airing, even in an edited form, the original accusatory Panorama expose back then.

The mini series itself made for riveting viewing most of the way through and was certainly helped in its attempts at veracity by casting actors in almost every part with a resemblance to their real life counterparts. The big coup was getting Hugh Grant to play the Thorpe part and he does a good job of capturing the smarmy, superior air of a man of power and with sufficient clout with the Establishment to cover his own dirty tricks and tracks. I was less convinced by Ben Whishaw's portrayal of Norman Scott as a mostly weak, simpering, attention seeking blackmailer when while not without faults, the real life Scott, still alive and seeking justice, just doesn't fit that particular profile (as anyone watching the Panorama show could attest).

Clearly Thorpe thought himself above the law and with friends in high places somehow escaped prosecution. This is never more obvious than when we witness the presiding judge's wholly partial summing up, accurately and wickedly parodied by the brilliant Peter Cook only days later (a clip is thoughtfully included over the end credits). I would take issue with some of the tone of the writing and direction of the piece which seemed at times too light and comical in its depiction of certainly sinister events. I understand that Scott himself is unhappy with how both himself and the actual events are portrayed.

Nevertheless, like I said, it was gripping viewing throughout especially for those of us able to remember the original trial and at least and at last puts the record straight (no pun intended) on an almost certain miscarriage of justice.

As the old saying has it, it's the rich wot get the pleasure and the poor wot get the blame. Or to quote Talking Heads "same as it ever was".

Can you feel sympathetic for a thoroughly unpleasant man who orders a murder? Maybe if you despise the would be victim, but the oddity of the Jeremy Thorpe story is that you can somehow end up with a measure of sympathy for both perpetrator and target without being certain that either deserve it. Thorpe, leader of Britain's liberal party, would have suffered no conseqeunces for being a monstrous individial had he not happened to be gay at a time that homosexual acts were first illegal, then later subject to strong social disapproval. Norman Scott was a young man with whom he had a sexual relationship (to be frank, by today's standards, it was initiated with an act of rape), couldn't get his own life together, fell back on Thorpe as his only hope (and used threats when Thorpe grew tired of supporting him), and ended up escaping a hysterically incompetent assasination event though his dog was shot in the process. In the end, Thorpe was acquitted of any crime thanks to his brilliant QC and an awful judge; but no-one was convinced, and his career was over.

Hugh Grant and Ben Wishaw are both quite brilliant in this telling of the story, as Thorpe and Scott respectively. Although the whole escapade is too farcical to be profoundly moving, you do feel sympathy towards two men increasingly locked together in an unsought destiny. Thankfully, society's treatment of alternate sexuality has improved over the last 40 years; the odd, competitve characters of those drawn into politics probably has not.

....complete with Mack Sennett - type music and savagely chewed scenery as the players compete in a positive orgy of over - acting. Mr Grant merely swaps one sort of stereotype for another,moving from 'Anyone for tennis?' to 'Anyone for murder?'. He tries so hard to be ruthless but only succeeds in being desperate. He lacks Thorpe's overweening vanity,the quality that caused Wilde's downfall when he failed to recognise that whilst he may have been jolly popular at the Café de Paris not many ordinary folks actually cared for him. His Thorpe is virtually a posh John Gotti.Leader of the Liberal Party at a point when British politics was at its most corrupt(and that's saying an awful lot)he jumped on any bandwagon going to draw attention to himself and as a result made many enemies even within his own ranks. When an earlier troublesome homosexual affair threatened to blow him out of the water - to coin a phrase -he arranged to have the unfortunate former lover eliminated. This is not really his sort of thing,you understand but,as he says,needs must. A Public School man through and through,he lies and prevaricates,as one must,but in a very middle -class out of his depth manner he bollixes the whole thing up. When the Old Bill come calling it takes a bent judge to "do the right thing" by this pathetic excuse for a man get him off with a summing - up that has to be heard to be believed.And the jury believed it. In a strange manner 'A very English Scandal' is quite fun to watch as Mr Grant frowns and growls for England and Ben Wishaw - as his erstwhile victim- piles on the camp. But in real life,the 'collateral damage to Thorpe's family and Jeremy Scott was not fun at all.

Hugh is fascinating in this role manages to capture the upper class duality of the man. Ben is mesmerising and tells the story of a beautiful young man who was dealing with events way out of his depth and conveys the honesty and simplicity of Norman Scott's plight. I feel both sympathy and sadness by watching this for the way Scott was treated. So well done all the cast and writers for putting the spotlight on this story. I hope Norman gets justice at last.