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Thursday 20 November 2008

Hancock’s hubris

Hancock and Joan (BBC4); The Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (BBC1)

The story was picked up by his mistress, Joan, wife of the sad, gentle, infinitely courteous John Le Mesurier, his best friend, who had already lost Hattie Jacques to a younger man and who somehow remained loyal to both Joan and Hancock. Her memoirs are called Lady Don’t Fall Backwards, which was also the title of the trash thriller Hancock took out of the library only to find the last page missing — another wondrous episode. The title is a perfectly judged Galton and Simpson invention, being vaguely threatening, quite meaningless and very funny.

Ken Stott was a terrific Hancock, all the misery with just a smattering of hope. Joan was played by Maxine Peake, who must be the least typecast actress on British television, having played the ditsy Twinkle in Dinner Ladies, the bossy Veronica in Shameless, and Myra Hindley. She caught perfectly a lover’s mingled devotion, hatred and despair as Hancock drank himself to failure and death. Brandy — ‘the old infuriator’ — had the worst effect; he could drink a bottle in five minutes and become odiously offensive. Like many other comedians, he went over to ITV and failed. He died from an overdose in an Australian hotel room, trying to resurrect his career and trying to beat the bottle, though in neither case trying very hard. The horror was heightened for those of us of a certain age because almost the entire country adored Hancock; it was like discovering that a close relative had been in the pit of despair and you never knew.

The Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (BBC1, Easter Day) was poignant for a different reason — five days before it was broadcast we learnt that its director and co-writer Anthony Minghella had died. This was a charming show, but somehow unbalanced. Alexander McCall Smith’s stories work because they depict a tiny, cosy, re-assuring world. Minghella loved his great landscapes, and somehow these little tales about human foibles and failures shrink against those endless plains and mountains. And Richard Curtis, the other co-writer, has a distinctive voice, which is not African. Precious Ramotswe’s secretary complains that she has no computer. In the distant past, she says, ‘typing was done by machines, our country was called Bechuanaland, and dinosaurs ruled the earth.’ Sounds more Notting Hill than Gabarone.

More articles from: Simon Hoggart | this section

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