A very English scandal

[Cistersaredoingitforthemselves]

Looking forward to seeing this

I have read the book and it was excellent.

I remember this happening and it being one of the earliest political scandals I was aware of ( and actually understood) - Watergate was my first but I was only small and didn't understand

Peter Bessell - the owner of a face like a badly tessellated pavement

Probably the best caption of a photo ever

The real farce was the judge's summing up, lampooned by Peter Cook.

I wondered who brought up Rupert after the death of his mother? Was JT a single father in parliament?

Thorpe and his second wife, Marion.

The Peter Cook sketch is available here and is still hilarious -

Thanks, Gnu!

I know, Gnu, but there was a 3 year gap. A Nanny, I suppose. Because he was at the height of his campaigning, travelling abroad, London, constituency... his mother didn’t come across as someone you would leave a baby with.

I wonder about his relationship with his second wife, given that by then his homosexuality must have been well known in his social circles, and she was very close friends with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, whether they were doing each other a favour.

The scene at his mother’s: they are boiled eggs and then went to bed. Was that supper, or was the sexual approach the second night?

The boiled eggs were supper. Marion must have known. She valiantly stood by him throughout the court case.

I thought this episode jumped the shark. The knock-about farce treatment of attempted murder of a vulnerable man? Nah.

Thanks gnu much appreciated.

I agree to some extent MrsFring - but from what i remmebr about the case on the news at the time, it was a ludicrously inept plot, and there was definitely a farcical element. yes of course the attmetped murder of a vulnerable young man is not remotely laughable, but the inadequacies of the plotters wre shown quite well I think. And I think Thorpe came across even more as the unpleasant person he was (thought HG was really spot on last night - he had Thorpe's very slightly hunched gait perfectly in the scenes in the garden after the car crash which killed his wife.)

I agree, KurriKurri, all the information available at the time was that the plot really was as ludicrous as depicted. In fact, if you read the book you will see that some ridiculous aspects have been left out. When I read it, my mouth was dropping open at the fact that Bessell and Holmes didn't instantly tell Thorpe to stop being so batshit and that they were having nothing whatsoever to do with it, but the facts demonstrate that they clearly didn't.

However, there was of course the underlying horror of the fact that Scott might well have died, and I thought they depicted his fear and his grief very well.

he did leave her penniless with a child and was gay and shouldn’t have married her in the first place

I don't think you can really criticise a gay (or bi) man in the late 60s for trying to conform to society's norms by trying to have a heterosexual relationship - the series does actually make very clear that people had some pretty bloody shitty views about gay men...

Lord - yes I can see why he was trying to conform etc.
It was sad for all involved in this.

I think NS was fairly upfront about his sexuality and that he had had male lovers - don't think his wife or gf's were in the dark about that.

I think in RL when his wife couldn't get maternity benefits ( NS claimed Thorpe had kept his NI card) Bessel arranged an emergency card for him (as well as paying him a weekly "retainer" for a number of years). I think the NI card issue was complicated by NS's name changes and involvement in (alleged) benefit fraud.

Farcical as the story is, whilst this nonsense was attracting so much publicity and attention, the Liberals were ignoring the sexual abuse of young boys by Cyril Smith up in Rotherham. He is now regarded as a Jimmy Saville clone when it came to the abuse of vulnerable young boys in care . David Steel had a quiet word with him about the rumours but apart from that everyone ignored what was going on.

One of the things that was brought out more in the book was that the establishment really knew a lot about what Thorpe was getting up to, though I suppose the reality was that homosexuality didn't bother them so long as he was not in a position where the danger of blackmail could have wider repercussions. But that sort of culture could well have affected their approach to Smith.

I just watched episode 1. It was brilliant!

Hugh Grant is just sublime in it.

Really enjoying this. DH comes from Minehead and confirmed that the road they drove down before the attempted murder was the actual one that Andrew Newton would have driven Scott down. Such attention to detail is nice to see.

MrsMuddlepies, one of the things I like about this series is that whilst it uses tne structure and devices of farce, it is actually really chilling. Like a modern day Joe Orton play, maybe. The scene where he goes to see the Home Secretary to get the police to back off, with the Home Sec knowing full well his denial was a lie, and JT knowing that the HS knew it was a lie, was chilling and, I think, clearly signalling the way that the establishment protected itself above all else. The moral complexity for us is that we are on the side of subverting the illegality of homosexuality. But the

Rupert is now a very successful photographer/member of the paparazzi. He owns his own agency and has been responsible for some of the worst intrusions into a persons private life

just seen episode 1 - this is the best thing I've seen since Wolf Hall in terms of dramatic complexity. There is a lot going on underneath the presentation - the actors/BBC have done a better job of showing the way people spoke at the time than nearly all of things I've seen. The mental fragility of Norman & Thorpe's coercion of him was brilliantly shown. The way Norman wasn't well enough to make a go at anything for long - is he bipolar? It seemed a good depiction of someone with manias and depressions.

The link to the decriminalization was fascinatingly done too: Thorpe not getting overly involved but being in principle for it as he's a liberal, whilst privately believing that it changed nothing on the ground or the electoral acceptability of being gay.

Yes, even loved the eccentric aristos - that was done so well, with less care and not such good acting and writing that would have been ridiculous.

Why was John le Mesurier mentioned? That bit went right over my head.

I love all the female characters, and the huge dogs. HG is surely at national treasure status now.

It's another John le Mesurier not the actor. I didn't know that until I read a newspaper review.

I had to watch it again as was a bit confused. poor dog!
So much easier those days without cctv marking your every move.
It’s very well done but still a bit hard to follow in places.

All the great, clever and complex dramas need a rewatch though - the first brideshead adaptation, tinker tailor (ditto, first adaptation) etc.

Dennis potter..if it doesn’t have layers it’s mwrely McDonald’s!