Hattie

Last year I watched a BBC dramatisation of doomed comedian Tony Hancock's affair with his best friend John LeMesurier's wife Joan, little realising that this was the second time the urbane, slightly effete but popular actor, later best known as Sgt Wilson in the long running comedy series "Dad's Army, had been cuckolded. Even more surprising was to learn that his first wife was the apparently sex-less, matronly Hattie Jacques and that her affair, as well as being torrid in the extreme, was with a much younger, handsome and as the phrase is today "ripped" man, her driver John Schofield. Worse yet, she went along with her lover's idea of moving LeMesurier up to the attic room of their marital home so that Schofeld could move full time into her bed and even let LeMesurier take the blame for their inevitable divorce to protect her family image from being tarnished.

Such a remarkable story, featuring the lives of two of Britain's best-loved actors of the 60's and 70's, was always going to have a high curiosity value bordering on prurience but failed, for me, by not taking sides and playing it all too neutrally. Perhaps this was due to pressure from the family and friends of the late Ms Jacques, I would imagine, but in trying to dress her liaison with the otherwise spivvy, on-the-make Schofield as some grand love affair, both are let off far too lightly. Remember that this triangle was played out with two young children in attendance too and unsavoury doesn't even begin to describe the showbiz goings-on here. We're almost directed to have sympathy for the self-deprecating jolly fat lady getting herself a young bloke and her emotional conflict in deciding which of the two Johns to plump (sorry) for when in fact her complicity in the goings-on here is morally reprehensible.

Thus I found it an awkward watch and came away from it by not respecting or liking any of the three leads, even LeMesurier, so much is his "door-mat" impression played out. The acting is good however, Ruth Jones doing a not quite lady-like enough impression of Jacques but otherwise carrying off the physical and vocal transformation well. Robert Bathurst doesn't look much like LeMesurier facially but gets his shrug-shoulders world- weariness down-pat, while Aidan Turner is excellent as the vile Schofield, the unwelcome cuckoo in the nest. The dialogue I did find to be characterful and subtle, histrionics avoided as the situation progresses.

Life-styles of the rich and famous are always morbidly inviting but on the whole I wish I'd looked the other way, rather like Hattie should have before she started on her ill- considered affair.

There is no villain of this story - Hattie and her husband John are almost strangers in their own home from the way they are portrayed, and none of this need happen if they had learned to communicate, rather than pass like ships in the night. Then along comes a beautiful man, with issues of his own, who gives Hattie something she's been lacking for a long time - the belief that she was a beautiful, sexual being.

And regarding Hattie's weight: she is shown in this to be unhappy with her size, but being big gave her work that she would not have had otherwise. One can sling mud at her, call her horrible names, but the public encouraged her to stay that way.

The sensitive handling of this piece does exactly what it should - it shows that it was a sad situation where people failed to talk to one another and took things, and each other, for granted.

Not much happens in this episode, except for Hattie Jacques (Ruth Jones) having an affair with John Davies (Aidan Turner) and eventually leaving her husband John le Mesurier (Robert Bathurst). The real problem lies with le Mesurier, who is so laid back as to be inactive, with little or no skill in the bed department. Compare with Davies, who shows the capacity of a stag in the way he ruts Jacques in the bedroom.

So far, so good. But that's mostly what the play is about. We learn little about Jacques's career, not that of le Mesurier, while Davies - played by an actor more celebrated for getting his kit off in POLDARK - is nothing more than a coarse yob. We learn at the end of the episode that eventually left Jacques for someone else, which seems vaguely appropriate for such an itinerant figure.

Jones gives a creditable impersonation of Jacques, but le Mesurier as portrayed by Bathurst is nothing more than a wet blanket, completely unlike the man we came to know as Sereeant Wilson in DAD'S ARMY. He lacks any strength of character, even when Joan rescues him from a potentially difficult situation as the third man in a love triangle.

Lovely drama about the complex love life of the comedy legend that was Hattie Jacques, wonderfully played by Ruth Jones and good support by Bathurst as her husband

There have been a few dramas recently based on the lives of the great British comedians of the 50's and 60's and Hattie is one of the best I've seen.

The acting is first rate, especially from the three principals. The period setting is well captured in the interior scenes - there are very few exterior shots, probably due to the budget. Another reviewer makes much of Hattie being a chubby lady but she was undoubtedly sexy and more so in real life than for the characters she played on screen. This is something else the film conveys very well.

The script is excellent - the real stand-out feature of the production. It's multi-layered and pays homage to the Carry On style of double entendre and elevates it to a much higher level. "Hattie" avoids being seedy but doesn't shy away from the details of this most unusual love story. Poor old John Le Mesurier! I'm off to form his appreciation society.