ianlouisiana Review of A Very English Scandal

A Very English Scandal (2018)

Whitehall Farce.........................

[7/10 · 2 June 2018]

....complete with Mack Sennett - type music and savagely chewed scenery as the players compete in a positive orgy of over - acting. Mr Grant merely swaps one sort of stereotype for another,moving from 'Anyone for tennis?' to 'Anyone for murder?'. He tries so hard to be ruthless but only succeeds in being desperate. He lacks Thorpe's overweening vanity,the quality that caused Wilde's downfall when he failed to recognise that whilst he may have been jolly popular at the Café de Paris not many ordinary folks actually cared for him. His Thorpe is virtually a posh John Gotti.Leader of the Liberal Party at a point when British politics was at its most corrupt(and that's saying an awful lot)he jumped on any bandwagon going to draw attention to himself and as a result made many enemies even within his own ranks. When an earlier troublesome homosexual affair threatened to blow him out of the water - to coin a phrase -he arranged to have the unfortunate former lover eliminated. This is not really his sort of thing,you understand but,as he says,needs must. A Public School man through and through,he lies and prevaricates,as one must,but in a very middle -class out of his depth manner he bollixes the whole thing up. When the Old Bill come calling it takes a bent judge to "do the right thing" by this pathetic excuse for a man get him off with a summing - up that has to be heard to be believed.And the jury believed it. In a strange manner 'A very English Scandal' is quite fun to watch as Mr Grant frowns and growls for England and Ben Wishaw - as his erstwhile victim- piles on the camp. But in real life,the 'collateral damage to Thorpe's family and Jeremy Scott was not fun at all.