Too heavy handed
James Delingpole
I've had to give up on The Forsyte Saga, I'm afraid. I stuck it out through the whole of the first series, which I rather enjoyed. But in the new one I find myself curiously reluctant to give a toss what happens to anyone, least of all the intensely annoying Gina McKee character, who's so wet, frosty and sulky that her raping exhusband Soames seems a joy by comparison.
Did Galsvvorthy's books get more pulpy the further into the Saga he went? It certainly feels that way. The Romeo and Juliet theme is too obvious; there are too many characters buzzing around with names and faces you can never remember; and there's far too much heavy-handed historical scene-setting. People are forever saying things like: 'Really my child, I can say with some confidence that Mr Picasso's geometric daubs will never catch on,' or 'You must remember Papa, that in reaction to the terrible loss of life in the Great War and the 1919 flu pandemic, we Bright Young Things simply most be gay.' Yes. I'm exaggerating, but you know what I mean. What I'm not exaggerating remotely is the lobotomised asininity of Cambridge Spies which crept to its miserable conclusion last weekend like some half-crushed cockroach trailing its slimy yellow guts and — ha? — got you, you bastard. I flicked over to a teeny bit of it, just to annoy myself, and saw the scene where the Anthony Blunt character (Sam West) tells the Queen that he likes Marx. `Groucho?' says Queenie. 'The other one,' says Blunt. `Ah, Harpo,' says the Queen. Yes, really. Crap screenwriter Thingy Whatisname actually thought this would be a worthwhile joke to include. If only he and the whole cast and crew could be put in a time machine and transported back to Stalin's Soviet Union. That would be good, wouldn't it? I wouldn't fancy Sam West's chances much, with that accent. In fact, Sam West is the thing that upset me most about the whole series. I used to worship and adore him because of his matchless skill at pronouncing with ringing authority German military terms on documentaries about the Nazis. But I read in the Radio Times he's an enormous lefty who thinks the Cambridge Spies were pretty good eggs. Bad. bad Sam.
In the first part of State Of Play, I kept making mental notes of all the reasons why it wasn't that good: the deeply unrealistic idealism of its journalists; the deeply unrealistic intelligence and political compe
tence of its Labour MP: the relentless generation of gratuitous tension — e.g. the cop immediately hating the newspaper editor: Cal's jealous rivalry with his fellow reporters — which you know is only there because of some hackneyed TV drarnaland edict that All Relationships Must Begin In Conflict.
After that, though, I just sat back and enjoyed. Unlike with its total whore of an American counterpart 24; action generally springs from character and you know that whoever the had guys turn out to be writer Paul Abbott will have made at least a reasonable stab at giving them a degree of plausible motivation.
Well, I hope so. The problem with conspiracy thrillers is that though they always go swimmingly well during the build-up, when the deaths all seem random and inexplicable and when the enemies are all shadowy and its just a handful of trustworthy good guys against heaven knows how extensive a network of high level corruption, they almost always fall down at the end when they finally have to explain what the conspiracy was all about.
Even Edge Of Darkness had this problem. I can't remember what happened in that final scene where Bob Peck goes into the caves and there are all those canisters of something or other. But I remember being grievously disappointed by just how prosaic it was after the inchoate menace of the earlier episodes.
Also, let's not forget, it was Edge Of Darkness which bequeathed us the tedious legacy of eco-thrillerdom. Now, 1 too happen to think that the environment is a jolly nice thing. But in the great scheme of terrifying threats to humanity, horrid businessmen polluting stuff are not nearly up there with, say, Islamofascists attempting to destroy the whole of Western civilisation. Unfortunately this an issue that screenwriters, being inherently PC, will almost always duck. It's OK if your baddies belong to approved hate groups like drugs barons, heartless capitalists and the Right generally; but not if they're part of an oppressed minority.
But I don't think I've quite made clear how much I'm enjoying State Of Play: I am, a lot. The characters are all strong and well drawn and it has started to get very gripping. That scene where Cal's cop bodyguard was chasing the ruthless assassin down darkened corridors really was edgeof-seat stuff, though it took me ages to work out why it was I cared so much whether or not he survived. Then, lying awake in bed that night, I remembered. He's the lovably roguish matelot from Horn blower.
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