This article was originally published in The Courier on 14th December 2013.
Lucan:
Wednesday, STV
Stephen
Hawking: A Brief History of Mine: Saturday,
Channel 4
Paul
Whitelaw
Despite its reputation as one of the
most notorious mysteries of our age, the bizarre case of homicidal
Freddie Mercury lookalike Lord Lucan had never been adapted for the
screen prior to Jeff Pope's two-part drama, Lucan. That's possibly due to its lack of a neat, concrete ending: after bludgeoning
his children's nanny to death in 1974, the man nicknamed “Lucky”
by his aristocratic peers simply vanished into the ether, never to be
found.
So while part two apparently provides
a theory as to how Lucan evaded capture, episode one focused on the
details leading up to the murder.
Pope, a writer/producer renowned for
non-sensationalist factual dramas such as Appropriate Adult
and See No Evil: The Moors Murders, delved into a decadent,
fenced-off world populated by overgrown children drunk on a diet of
arrogant entitlement.
At its centre lay the poisonous John
Aspinall (Christopher Eccleston, sporting a distractingly mannered
posh accent), a corrupt gambling club owner and moral supremacist
whose skewed take on Darwinism – nature must yield to the strongest
alpha male – was, according to Pope, a key influence on Lucan's
decision to bump off his estranged wife in order to gain custody of
their children.
In stark contrast to Aspinall's
dominant personality, Lucan, as portrayed by Rory Kinnear, came
across as an empty carapace and gullible fool with no discernible
charm or charisma. Curiously, this goes against everything we've been
told about Lucan: that he was a flamboyant character with sparkle to
spare. The only mildly flamboyant aspect of Kinnear's performance was
his luxuriant moustache, through which he muttered his lines like a
quietly seething vampire.
Though I've no doubt that the
decision to portray him as a cold-eyed fish paralysed with
upper-class reserve was deliberate - Pope always carefully avoids
glamorising his subjects - it did rather undermine the notion that
he was driven to murder due to an all-consuming love of his children.
Kinnear's inert, understated Lucan doesn't seem capable of committing
a crime of passion.
But was paternal love actually his
abiding motivation? Pope also suggested that this inveterate gambler,
a man who'd been indulged his entire life, simply couldn't bear to
lose. Just in case you missed this suggestion, Pope made sure that
Aspinall/Eccleston spelled it out during several over-egged
soliloquies.
Despite a sluggish start and some
extraneous scenes set in the present day – it feels dramatically
unnecessary to include author John Pearson, upon whose book the
series is based, as a linking device – Lucan succeeds if
only to satisfy our morbid curiosity about the case.
And yet the actual murder itself
wasn't depicted gratuitously: that's not Pope's style. A recurring
theme throughout his work is the chilling banality of evil, so
although Lucan is characterised as a dispassionate bore, at least one
doesn't feel the remotest tingle of titillation while watching this
frosty account of his pathetic saga.
A documentary narrated by the subject
themselves is usually a recipe for self-serving disaster. But
Stephen Hawking: A Brief History of Mine, in which the
estimable scientist looked back over his remarkable life, avoided
hagiography thanks to an overriding flavour of commendable candour
and charming self-awareness.
Hawking, who was told he only had two
years to live when diagnosed with motor neurone disease in the 1960s,
emerged from this humbling, tasteful film as an extraordinarily
indefatigable character whose lust for knowledge and experience is
informed by an acute awareness of life's transience.
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