Hattie

As with so many biopics it covers the basics but not especially accurately. The lives of people are complicated and impossible to cover in 90 mins so its to be expected but there are quite a few issues with this one.

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.

The darker side of the lives of actors associated with the 'Carry On' series have already provided material for several TV dramas; and this time it's the turn of Hattie Jacques with the emphasis on her ill-fated marriage to John LeMesurier.

Ruth Jones portrays Jacques as a woman with a healthy sexual appetite and great generosity of spirit that made her easy prey for good-looking young men. The film itself - beset by distracting directorial tics by Dan Zeff including wobbly steadicam photography and the inevitable switches between black & white and colour - attempts to turn this simple tale into an Antonioniesque study in alienation.

The chronology is often rather suspect, Robert Bathurst doesn't really look or sound much like Le Mesurier; while the single most egregious omission is that there are only a couple of fleeting references to Eric Sykes.

And I simply cannot believe that Esma Cannon was capable of swearing so much.

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.