Stanley and the Women

The title "Stanley and the Women" really is accurate for Amis's book, which I liked a lot. But this miniseries ought to be called "Stanley and His Schizophrenic Son." Even at four hours, Stanley's relationships with his wife, ex-wife, female coworker, and the female psychiatrist are given short-shrift. With the exception of the coworker, all these characters are drawn with broad strokes, especially the psychiatrist, who seems like a bizarre Dr. Frankenstein from the first -- someone to whom the reasonable, well-off Stanley would never entrust his son.

Still, Thaw's performance is so good that I watched all four hours straight through.

Michael Elphick, who plays the current husband of Stanley's ex-wife, is also good. The low-key scenes between him and Stanley are the most believable in the production.

This was accused at the time of being too melodramatic and misogynistic, but I think it is a solid John Thaw adaptation. I have all four episodes on DVD, and I like this adaptation a lot. I haven't read the book, but I've heard it has a rather stereotypical view of women.

John Thaw gives a mesmerising performance as Stanley Duke, who discovers that his son has schizophrenia, a spirited performance from Samuel West.He then realises that he has been used by Dr Trish Collings as an experiment for her new book. Collings is played nastily by Geraldine James, who was also in Morse and Kavanagh. Penny Downie does well also as Susan, and Shiela Gish is laugh out loud funny as Stanley's first wife.

And I mustn't forget the men, Michael Elphick and Alun Armstrong were standouts, but Donald Churchill and Michael Aldridge(who died 3 years later) did respectively.

All in all, a funny, moving and quite shocking insight in the life of a schizophrenic's family 9/10 Bethany Cox