Last night I dreamed I watched 'The Scapegoat' again... and woke up hoping that, should my double exist, I never meet her. A little later than planned, we watched this one-off drama, based on a lesser-known work by Daphne du Maurier. To get around the 1952 story showing its age, this is a sort of Jubilee tribute, set in the Coronation year and drawing parallels between the Queen who was never meant to be, and the usurper John Standing who makes a better fist of his double's life than the real Johnny Spence (both Matthew Rhys).
The Prince and Pauper storyline is a familiar one from fiction (Man in the Iron Mask) and partially in fact (the Titchborne Claimant) and is yet another programme badly trailed. Instead of a lurid thriller, this was an old-fashioned story and while the premise is implausible, Sturridge and his cast have fashioned a decent drama from du Maurier's book.
The ending hints at its being an oblique metaphor for the abdication crisis having a happy outcome. Even the pet goldfish is called Mrs Simpson, and dies, to be buried in a matchbox in the garden. Which is probably a kinder slant than interpreting the moral more directly implied by a close-up of John/Johnny's eyes in the final frame: if you're doing a better job than the real thing, but the real thing wants their role back, it's allowable to dispose of them. Hmmm.
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