In the virtual war for civilisation, it’s difficult to say who’s going to win,
Churchill or Hitler. Both men are almost certain thespian death for anyone
who takes them on. The best performances of Hitler must go to Bruno Ganz as
the Führer in Downfall and Charlie Chaplin as the Great Dictator. But in a
career of almost perfectly pitched parts, from comedy through pathos to
tragedy, Hitler was Alec Guinness’s downfall. He came over more petulant and
camp than monstrous. Mind you, Richard Burton’s Churchill was a career
nadir; and Simon Ward’s CV never recovered from being dashed against
Churchill’s early life.
War films used to wheel out Churchill as a sort of semi-deific character to
bless the proceedings: all the other parts would step back and assume
positions of reverence, like a Renaissance deposition, while the lookalike
would make V-signs and wave the incense of his cigar. Churchill definitely
had a better script than Hitler — screaming in German isn’t great on film —
but Hitler has more action. He’s always invading someone, while Winston
tends to sit around in bunkers, growling. And then there’s the kit. Hitler
had some great outfits, the whole double-breasted thing, big collars, butch
hats and perfect accessories — armbands, belts, medals, daggers. If
Churchill were prime minister today, he’d have an army of PRs and style
managers linking arms in front of his wardrobe. The man should never have
been allowed to dress himself. If you’re short, round and look like a
malevolent baby, for God’s sake don’t wear all-in-one velvet romper suits.
What was he thinking of? Probably the fall of Singapore.
Churchill took another tumble this week in Into the Storm, the sequel
to The Gathering Storm, presumably to be followed by Sunny Intervals. This
was a potted jog through the best bits of the second world war, seen as
cunning flashbacks while Churchill holidayed in the south of France, waiting
for the results of the 1945 election. If you don’t want to know the score,
look away now. And that really rather goes to the nub of the problem with
this drama: it was made for people who don’t know much about the war in
Europe pre-D-Day. That is to say, Americans. This is a very American view of
the bit of the conflict they didn’t turn up for. So it’s both simple and
embarrassing, rather reminiscent of the war films of the 1950s, all stiff
upper lips and furrowed brows. All the famous things were ticked off like
tourist attractions — “We will fight them on the beaches”, the battle of
Britain. At one point Churchill gets into his car and mutters: “Never in the
course of human history... [etc etc]. Make a note of that, Fotheringay, I
may use it.” That’s the sort of storytelling that should make scriptwriters
sit bolt upright in bed covered in sweat and feelings of guilt, remorse and
self-loathing.
To the Americans, Churchill is a towering figure because he stood against not
just Nazis, but the vested interests, snobberies and cowardly stuffiness of
the old world; whereas to the Brits he represents everything that is best
about the virtues and strengths of the old world. Churchill himself probably
thought he embodied both.
This was a pretty poor and perfunctory, overproduced programme, embossed with
a shaming number of dramatic and historical clichés. The cast was
universally good, but in the way of all star casts, where even actors in the
smallest parts are recognisable, there was a feeling you were watching a
Christmas chocolate selection. The sum diminished the parts. Janet McTeer
was a fine Clemmie, though one written as a foil and a feed for the fat
baby. And Brendan Gleeson had a workmanlike stab at the man, but never
really got beyond an impression. It’s the voice that gets them all.
Churchill sounds like Rory Bremner doing Churchill. It’s a noise that has
moved into parody and won’t come out.
There is another problem with Churchill, more profound. He seems an odd and
unsympathetic character; he doesn’t fit comfortably into the contemporary
world, as he didn’t fit comfortably into his own. He’s too pompous and
ponderous and purple and drunk, too much of a bully to be sympathetic.
Hitler, on the other hand, is a monster for all seasons. No amount of
ridicule can lessen his awful fascination. Evil is always timely. So while
Churchill recedes as a role model, the Führer is still a dreadful warning.
In place of the dire Sunday Austen-Brontë romance, we are being offered
another costume drama, but this time the drama is actually written for
television, for an audience that doesn’t have to suspend its entire cultural
experience to enjoy it. Garrow’s Law is a legal drama based on
the life of a real man who helped invent the combative legal system of
competing barristers and made courtrooms a slightly fairer place for the
accused.
The 18th-century costumes look remarkably contemporary, and that’s, of course,
because they are. Barristers still wear wigs and gowns in mourning for Queen
Anne, who, incidentally, had to be buried in a square coffin because she’d
let herself go. Andrew Buchan’s William Garrow, the man who gave the
defendant a voice, is played with a very contemporary liberal righteousness,
and this is probably right. It makes him sympathetic. He not only champions
the put-upon and set-up, but he is himself put upon and set up in this
class-ridden society, in the closed world of the law. There is just a hint
of Life on Mars about this drama, a contemporary brief sent back to right
wrongs.
We haven’t had a decent courtroom drama for ages, and this one looks
promising: the law is corrupt, ragged and raw, its consequences dire, its
crimes livid. The first episode was about a maid charged with infanticide.
It was compelling as a story, but also fascinating as social history. As the
point of romcoms is the release of the final kiss, so with courtroom dramas
it’s the catharsis of the verdict. And this one offered a big air-punching
moment of vindication.
The households of Britain are divided on one of the most important cultural
questions of our time. Is the greatest Christmas movie It’s a Wonderful Life
or The Great Escape? Personally, I couldn’t spend the festive day in a home
where, as the opening bars of that great movie soundtrack began, someone
said: “Oh, we must turn over and watch James Stewart as a suicidal mortgage
broker.” Christmas is The Great Escape, as are England football games. The
film is a testament to something very Blighty. The whole Colditz business of
escaping is singularly English. I think it has something to do with boarding
schools — the French and Poles don’t seem to have the same fascination with
digging tunnels.
The film itself is very odd, and I had hoped The Great Escape — The
Reckoning might answer some of its more pressing queries, like how come
Steve McQueen got to wear a T-shirt and chinos as a pilot, and exactly the
same outfit as a disguise, 30 years before anyone wore them for real? And
what was he doing flying with a baseball and glove? But sadly, these must
remain mysteries wrapped in enigmas, as Churchill made a note to say later.
This programme was about the hunt for the Gestapo officers who shot the 50
escapees. It may have been a brilliant film, but it was a remarkably inept
escape. The recaptured airmen were summarily executed. After the war, a
British policeman spent three years tracking down their killers. The role of
hunted and hunter were reversed, but when they were caught the result was
the same. They were executed. It was such a doggedly English thing to
pursue, when you consider all the other stuff that was happening in Europe,
all the other horrors. There was a moment of terrible pathos, a letter
written by the mother of a condemned German to the mother of the man he had
helped kill, begging for clemency. This was, like the film, a boy’s game of
two halves, played with fatal consequences that left behind orphans and
widows and bereft mothers.
Spooks is back again, and now I’ve lost the plot. I can’t remember
who’s who, or where or when. I don’t even know who’s dead or
just under cover. I don’t know whose side is which and who knows what
about whom, except that I know nothing about anything. All this may be very
clever and deep, but actually if I don’t know who I should be caring about,
then I won’t bother caring about any of them. Spooks has run out of energy,
it’s got too much story and not enough purpose. What’s left is the endless
repetitive double-crossing, and in terms of suspense that looks very much
like plot crochet.
Into the Storm (BBC1, Monday)
Garrow’s Law (BBC1, Sunday)
The Great Escape — The Reckoning (Channel 4, Monday)
Spooks (BBC1, Wednesday)
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