A Very English Scandal - BBC1

[greenilex]

Sorting representants from participants and darlings from fuhrers gets ever more complicated and confusing.

I did enjoy both the drama (haven’t yet caught the middle episode, in which I hope no dogs were inconvenienced?) and the updated unseen doc.

Well done all, I’d say.

[LHC]

Oh, at around 19mins 30"? - I had presumed the opposite: easier (and cheaper) to get an extra to fill in for the few seconds than to splice into archive footage. ( It didn't even need to be much of a "lookalike", as I would imagine that not many people remember AW's features particularly well.) But far from me to argue with The Guardian!

I don't think the Guardian reviewer was suggesting that film of the real Auberon Waugh had been spliced into the footage, but rather that it was really Auberon Waugh who had stood for the 'Dog Lover's Party' in that election (as opposed to Thorpe's co-defendant John Le Mesurier, who wasn't the star of Dad's Army, but just had the same name). It was clearly an extra made up to look a bit like AW.

[LMcD]

I don't think the Guardian reviewer was suggesting that film of the real Auberon Waugh had been spliced into the footage, but rather that it was really Auberon Waugh who had stood for the 'Dog Lover's Party' in that election (as opposed to Thorpe's co-defendant John Le Mesurier, who wasn't the star of Dad's Army, but just had the same name). It was clearly an extra made up to look a bit like AW.

I agree that the 'Guardian' review could have been more clearly worded. Mind you, technology means that anything is now possible when it comes to mixing fact and fiction.
Perhaps the 'powers that be' could correct the title of the thread (not my fault gov, honest!). Perhaps somebody was thinking of that excellent Channel 4 drama 'A Very British Coup'.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I don't think the Guardian reviewer was suggesting that film of the real Auberon Waugh had been spliced into the footage, but rather that it was really Auberon Waugh who had stood for the 'Dog Lover's Party' in that election (as opposed to Thorpe's co-defendant John Le Mesurier, who wasn't the star of Dad's Army, but just had the same name). It was clearly an extra made up to look a bit like AW.

Aha! That makes more sense - (and also clears up some confusion I'd had from some of jean's replies!)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Perhaps the 'powers that be' could correct the title of the thread (not my fault gov, honest!).

Done

[LMcD]

Thank you!

[Nick Armstrong]

Superlative final episode of the drama, and a very good documentary. After watching both, I was left with a powerful sense of the lucky, temporary and oh-so-pyrrhic victory of the vile Thorpe, and of Scott's ultimate moral victory somehow - seeing him alive and well, alone among the protagonists, and able to laugh at the ludicrousness of the whole saga despite its frighteningly murderous focus on him was heartwarming and left him looking rather heroic, I thought.

Fascinating for me to see Adrian Scarborough's version of George Carman - I'd forgotten he represented Thorpe. I briefed GC in a couple of cases (he did quite a bit of libel later in his career - being the only civil actions which then were tried with a jury, his skills were sometimes just what a case required). I got fairly close to him during one complicated case, and quite a few evenings were spent sinking Château Thames Embankment in El Vino's in Fleet St. so I got to see the man as well as the courtroom assassin. I didn't recognise at all Scarborough's rendering of the man out of court (the bumbling into a conference, for instance) - GC was always totally and quietly in command, like a miniature Don, chain-smoking and decisive. But Scarborough did capture exactly what GC was like in court, able to sever the jugular of a witness with a few short questions but with complete courtesy - and often with a 'popular culture' reference thrown in to keep the jury on-side: the Hughie Green 'Double Your Money' quip rang completely true *

(They didn't depict that during a hearing he would always engineer a need to 'take instructions' every hour or so, in order that the judge would rise for 5 minutes and George could nip into the corridor for a smoke )

.

*Doubtless because the courtroom scenes were based on transcripts and hence faithful to the actual events, whereas the out-of-court scenes were fictionalised

[Serial_Apologist]

A triumph, too, for Tom Mangold, in getting his formerly banned 1979 documentary finally broadcast. Anyone who needs to know the true meaning of "BBC political documentary" as it once represented in terms of investigative journalism, to the point where leading representatives of the ruling class felt their reputations sufficiently safeguarded to speak frankly and at length in revealing facts that today would be obscured by a hyped up over-eagerness, and interruptions from interviewers who, seemingly unable to grasp passing clues, have lost all sense of etiquette and basic manners, should see this. As John Pilger demonstrated in persuading top Pentagon figures to reveal Cold War truths, you don't need to be brusque or rude to elicit secrets such as we all need in order to be informed participants in our supposed democracies.

[jean]

Did anyone else find it slightly uncomfortable that Mangold seemed to regard Thorpe’s getting away with all that homosexuality early in his career as almost as reprehensible as getting away with conspiracy to murder would have been (and ultimately was)?

[Serial_Apologist]

Did anyone else find it slightly uncomfortable that Mangold seemed to regard Thorpe’s getting away with all that homosexuality early in his career as almost as reprehensible as getting away with conspiracy to murder would have been (and ultimately was)?

I was struck by the way he described Thorpe as having got away with breaking what he described as having been a very serious law at the time. It can take many, many years to redress past laws that are now considered by mainstream opinion to have been iniquitous, and even now, when persons living or dead are still classed as "guilty", governments can consider a "pardon" as sufficient in getting someone off for the "crime" of cowardice in war, for example. As far as I understand a pardon does not exonerate a verdict of guilt. And if Thorpe broke the law one cannot be allowed to retrospectively exonerate him, since a law is the law, constitutionality being the all-important factor, and unless always obeyed there would be anarchy in some people's opinion, regardless of if that law has been subsequently repealed. Then there are laws still on statute, defended by those who view suffragettes who transgressed the law in direct actions as having gone too far in so doing.

[ahinton]

Fantastic performances by Whishaw and Grant in particular, Grant especially rising way above the tawff / comedic figure that he's more often than not played in the past; serious stuff!

No one has yet mentioned the music which was so incidental as to suggest that it the series might have been better off with about it altogether; its trivial nature was to some degree compatible with the sheer clumsinesses, absurdities and the rest wherewith the story is peppered but it served the serious aspects of it not at all - and the Rachmaninoff allusion (mercifully brief though it was) was simply gratuitous (and it's perhaps a good thing that Rachmaninoff's been out of copyright for a few years otherwise someone might ha re been reaching for their lawyers). All that glisters is certainly not Gold although he'll doubtless make several bars' worth of the stuff when this otherwise excellent series travels successfully around the world as surely it will...

[Mary Chambers]

Did anyone else find it slightly uncomfortable that Mangold seemed to regard Thorpe’s getting away with all that homosexuality early in his career as almost as reprehensible as getting away with conspiracy to murder would have been (and ultimately was)?

Yes. It was very noticeable to me.

[ahinton]

Yes. It was very noticeable to me.

Me too (as the saying goes) - and in the drama itself they just had to make passing mention of Benjamin Britten, one may suppose...

[Lat-Literal]

I was struck by the way he described Thorpe as having got away with breaking what he described as having been a very serious law at the time. It can take many, many years to redress past laws that are now considered by mainstream opinion to have been iniquitous, and even now, when persons living or dead are still classed as "guilty", governments can consider a "pardon" as sufficient in getting someone off for the "crime" of cowardice in war, for example. As far as I understand a pardon does not exonerate a verdict of guilt. And if Thorpe broke the law one cannot be allowed to retrospectively exonerate him, since a law is the law, constitutionality being the all-important factor, and unless always obeyed there would be anarchy in some people's opinion, regardless of if that law has been subsequently repealed. Then there are laws still on statute, defended by those who view suffragettes who transgressed the law in direct actions as having gone too far in so doing.

I have a clear view on this matter. It seems to me that one should make a big distinction between the law so far as it once related to persecution in terms of identity and most other legislation. For example, it might well be that in years to come, all drugs will be decriminalised. The legislation on illegal drug use does not concern identity and retrospective pardoning in regard to laws on identity should not be seen as having set any sort of precedent there. War "cowardice" is a tricky one - but again I think avoidance on the grounds of identity is distinct from other forms of war avoidance, for example political but perhaps not on religious grounds of conscience. I say perhaps as religion isn't about a person's genes. Of course, in the current age, being female, gay, a certain aspect of black or disabled is not so relevant in war. That is the nature of equality - the good, the depending on one's opinion and the bad.

As for Mr Thorpe, he did actually begin 18 months' National Service, but within six weeks was discharged on medical grounds after collapsing while attempting an assault course. He had previously upset Eton by refusing to be in its cadet force. I do sometimes wonder what the exact nuances were in objection. History shows that homosexuality does not, by definition, make for a bad soldier. Indeed to suggest such a thing would be to besmirch the many gay people who have had a brilliant military career. However, it is true that a certain type of person is not designed for military service. Among that group would be some gay people and some straight people. Mr Thorpe was not exactly opposed to aggression. Still, in those times, some aspects of communal living might deplorably have appeared to reveal that an individual was an "illegal". From what I have heard of servicemen, most were very supportive of such people and rationally they would be given that they were not on the enemy side. I conclude the principal problem was about the role of senior officers and any man in the ranks who had his sights on their reward. Censure would have come from there as governed by the law but the extent to which it was applied is something about which I can only surmise.

[gradus]

[QUOTE=Caliban;682457][COLOR="#0000FF"]Superlative final episode of the drama, and a very good documentary. After watching both, I was left with a powerful sense of the lucky, temporary and oh-so-pyrrhic victory of the vile Thorpe, and of Scott's ultimate moral victory somehow - seeing him alive and well, alone among the protagonists, and able to laugh at the ludicrousness of the whole saga despite its frighteningly murderous focus on him was heartwarming and left him looking rather heroic, I thought.

Fascinating for me to see Adrian Scarborough's version of George Carman - I'd forgotten he represented Thorpe. I briefed GC in a couple of cases (he did quite a bit of libel later in his career - being the only civil actions which then were tried with a jury, his skills were sometimes just what a case required). I got fairly close to him during one complicated case, and quite a few evenings were spent sinking Château Thames Embankment in El Vino's in Fleet St. so I got to see the man as well as the courtroom assassin. I didn't recognise at all Scarborough's rendering of the man out of court (the bumbling into a conference, for instance) - GC was always totally and quietly in command, like a miniature Don, chain-smoking and decisive. But Scarborough did capture exactly what GC was like in court, able to sever the jugular of a witness with a few short questions but with complete courtesy - and often with a 'popular culture' reference thrown in to keep the jury on-side: the Hughie Green 'Double Your Money' quip rang completely true *

(They didn't depict that during a hearing he would always engineer a need to 'take instructions' every hour or so, in order that the judge would rise for 5 minutes and George could nip into the corridor for a smoke )

In some respects Carman was the most interesting character in the final episode. I imagine that the legal profession has a vast repertoire of stories and gossip about GC and that the fictionalised scenes between him and Thorpe were based on that rich seam of hearsay?