The Tichborne Claimant

An interesting period drama, but the narrator approach was a mistake. The pace is slow, but if the idea had been fully developed, it would have been more successful. A rushed and unconvincing ending. Worth seeing on TV, but not worth paying for!

The Tichborne family had lived in Hampshire since at least the 12th century and come to own a large hunk of it; thus when Roger Tichborne, heir to rent rolls worth 25,000 pounds a year, disappeared at sea in 1854, it's not surprising someone tried to pass himself off as the real Roger. A Wagga Wagga butcher called Arthur Orton took up the challenge and managed to convince many people, including Roger's mother, but the estate trustees were never convinced, and fought Orton's civil case, which ran for 102 days in 1871-72. Orton, who spent 22 days in the witness box being cross-examined, lost the case, and was indicted for perjury. The criminal trial, which lasted 188 days, went over much the same ground, but with even more witnesses, and resulted in Orton's conviction and sentence to 14 years penal servitude. He served 10 years and later confessed in print to his fraud.

This film suggests that the Tichborne affair was as much about the nature of aristocracy as the lure of big money. Orton was not a very prepossessing character, a crude, drunken, overweight boor of a man. The late Roger was not up to much either – a failed army officer, also a drunk, who had gone to sea after a cousin had turned down his marriage proposal. Roger's former West Indian valet, Bogle, it is suggested, had a grudge against the Tichborne family and trained up Orton to be an aristocrat for the purposes of deceiving them (in return for half the estates).

Once or twice Orton `remembers'things which are quite extraordinary, but there are huge gaps in his knowledge of Roger and his background. The real Roger was brought up in Paris by his French mother, learned English as a second language in his teens and spoke English with a French accent. Orton tried to account for his ignorance of French by pleading memory loss from an accident (‘in Tasmania') but clearly the jury did not believe him. Unlike Professor Higgins in `My Fair Lady' Bogle does not succeed in transforming the cloddish Orton into an aristocrat, but the point is made that aristocrats are made, not born, and that the man with the big estate has no particular moral superiority.

Robert Pugh as the claimant puts in a full-blooded, theatrical performance – entirely appropriate since he goes on music hall stages drumming up support for his cause during the film. He is supported by a gallery of accomplished players in minor parts – Charles Gray and James Villiers as two non-believing family members, Robert Hardy as a sympathetic neighbour, Stephen Fry as Hawkins, the family's barrister, and John Gielgud as Cockburn CJ (who in reality presided only over the criminal trial). The producer Tom McCabe plays Kenealy, Orton's inept and paranoid Irish barrister (who in reality appeared only in the criminal case). The pivotal part of Bogle is coolly portrayed by the South African actor John Kali, a dead ringer for Nelson Mandela. For understandable reasons the scriptwriters have compressed the two trials into one; for completely inexplicable reasons they have changed the dates, moving Roger's disappearance forward to 1866 and the trial to the late 1870s. But the film does at least capture some of the atmosphere, and explain why, sometimes, the more improbable a story, the more likely people are to believe it. One footnote: the firm of solicitors who took Orton's case for him, Norton, Rose & Co, survived the calamity and today flourish as a large and prestigious City firm.

At the start of THE TICHBORNE CLAIMENT we're informed that this is the greatest fraud ever played upon the British public so what does this type of movie say to you ? That you're going to be watching a truly cinematic and enthralling tale ? A sort of Italian Job with horse drawn carriages instead of minis ? That's how the movie should have been produced but for some reason the audience are never treated to anything resembling a cinematic movie

Who do we blame - The director David Yates or the producer Tom McCabe ? I looked up Yates resume and though much of his work has been in television he has a fairly good track record and will be directing the next Harry Potter film so that must mean something while McCabe has a very uneven CV which nearly always involves his produced works failing to get wide distribution so I'm making a very educated guess that Mr McCabe is the one responsible for this film being virtually unknown

The problem starts round about the opening sequence where Andrew Bogle relates the story of Lord Tichborne through a series of photographs and a not convincing model shot of a shipwreck . This expositional story telling technique has been done many times via the BBC's excellent history show TIMEWATCH and umpteen documentaries on the history channel and all through the running time of THE TICHBORNE CLAIMENT I never got the feeling that I was watching a dramatised cinematic account but something from The History Channel

What makes this rather unforgivable is the potential of the story and the fine cast . People love hearing about other people being made fools of and it's part of human nature but at no point will the audience rub their hands in sadistic glee watching people getting ripped off ( GREY OWL also suffers from this by being overly serious ) and the cast certainly don't help by being very staid . The whole movie would have been much more better if it had a Dickensian caricature feel where the characters are portrayed as Great British eccentrics . As it stands THE TICHBORNE CLAIMENT is instantly forgettable and ever so wasted as a cinematic film

Every inch a home-grown product, The Tichborne Claimant is a Victorian-set comedy-drama, based on a true story and featuring a whole host of British character actors. During the 1870s Sir Roger Tichborne, heir to the ninth largest estate in Britain, went missing, shipwrecked off Australia. Sure of his survival, his brother and manservant went to find him. When his brother died of alchohol abuse, the servant was stranded in Australia, the Tichborne family unwilling to pay for his return. This is where the story really begins. The servant, Andrew Bogle (John Kani), formerly an African slave, begins to look for Tichborne - or a passable imposter - in order to return to England and resume his old life. After years of searching, a fat drunkard (Robert Pugh) appears who is evidently Tichborne - or someone who knows an uncanny amount about him. They sail back to London, Bogle training Tichborne up to act like an aristocrat on the way. Unsurprisingly, his family claim he is an impostor and he is forced to take legal action to claim his estate. Both Pugh, a veteran stage actor, and Kani, a South African who survived three assassination attempts while campaigning against Apartheid, are excellent. Kani is both dignified and enigmatic, while Pugh is outrageous as the cigar-smoking, drunken Tichborne. A supporting cast of dozens of Britain's finest adds an enormous amount, with Stephen Fry and John Gielgud (who recently died, aged 96) particularly enjoyable as wonderfully odious members of the establishment. First-time director David Yates sustains a comfortable pace and establishes a stylised but believable vision of Victorian England. As in real life, we are never truly sure whether Tichborne is who he says he is and this helps to sustain the interest in the story throughout. Overall, an enjoyable film - witty, moving and interesting, a quiet alternative to the likes of Fight Club.