Living with the Inspector

In this ingenious ‘double biography’, which covers not only her own life and that of her late husband, the peerless television actor John Thaw, but also their life together, the actress Sheila Hancock has achieved an impressive and affecting work of art. Unfort- unately, though, it is flawed by the author’s self-indulgence in ranting on about her tiresome Bel Littlejohnish political views by way of furnishing what her publishers (who really should have told her to chuck it) quaintly call ‘a study of Britain from the 1930s to the present’. It is as if a subtle and beautifully executed painting has been spoilt by being daubed with cheap political slogans.

Here are a few samples of Hancock’s excruciating ‘takes’ on modern history. After touching on the Nazis’ ‘Final Solution’, she goes on to say, ‘The British also embarked on a programme of mass killing …’ The postwar Labour government was ‘led by visionaries, some … from the working class’.