Hats off to BBC Four for a brilliant season of biopics about the tragedy behind the smiles of so many of Britain's most endearing comics.
The Curse of Steptoe and Son was ghoulishly fascinating, as was Trevor Eve's intriguing portrayal of Hughie Green. But the drama with the loudest fanfare appeared this week, with Little Britain's David Walliams stepping into unfamiliar territory to recreate the iconic look and ways of the late Frankie Howerd.
Less of an extended series of 'titter ye not' vignettes and more a study of a man who could never come to terms with being gay, Rather You Than Me could be the most curious love story the BBC has ever screened.
In the mid 1950s, Howerd meets waiter Dennis Heymer (Rafe Spall) who becomes infatuated with the funnyman. Touchingly, Heymer's affections seem genuinely based on a love for the real Frankie, with fame and fortune a distracting sideshow which rolls into town whenever his other half is en vogue.
Walliams acted his socks off, and has clearly been studying miles of footage of the comic.
But that was the thing; we all know who David Walliams is. He already has an established, distinctive persona and an established, distinctive face. Too established and too distinctive to play someone else with an iconic personality. It really needed a smaller name, who could sneak in to Howerd's dangling jowels with less fuss and concentrate on nailing his tics and whims.
Michael Sheen is by no means a big name, but there was one week last year when this huge talent turned in equally convincing portrayals of Tony Blair and Kenneth Williams in programmes broadcast within days of each other.
That aside, Rather You Than Me was an absorbing tale. Just the like the rest of the films in this season, 1950s Britain is designed and shot as though it were the bleakest period ever envisaged, with barely a splash of colour to liven things up.
On a positive note, this didn't have the woebegone endings the tales of Harry H Corbett or Tony Hancock closed on. Frankie and Dennis just kept on going, the latter pretending to be the former's manager and chauffeur in public (and turning a blind eye to his constant chasing of younger men) until Howerd's death in 1992.
No mention was even made of Frankie's demise, the story closing after a successful evening at the Oxford Union in 1990, when he became something of a cult icon for the nation's youth.
If anything this was the story of an unconventional marriage, which worked despite the odds.
And if it lacked anything, it was an appearance by his long-time friend, and a woman he considered family - Miss Cilla Black.
But who would you get to play Cilla? Hopefully not Matt Lucas.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »