Best of Men and Bert & Dickie

  



Bert and Dickie plus oars

Ludwig and Wynn plus hospital equipment







Comparisons are inevitable.  Two 90-minute Beeb dramas about the last time London hosted the games, sorry - The Games, one focused on the Olympics double sculls and one on the birth of the Paralympics at Stoke Mandeville hospital.  In tone, not much else differed, since they were both solidly-scripted and well cast biopics, essentially.  Which isn't to say that we quite managed to forget Mr Smith tripping round the universe in the tardis, nor Mr Brydon tripping round the UK with Mr Coogan.  That this didn't detract from viewing pleasure was thanks to the other cast members, particularly Sam Hoare, Douglas Hodge and Anastasia Hille in 'Bert and Dickie' and Eddie Marsan and George MacKay in 'Best of Men'.

Of the two, though, the latter, shown last night *, had the bigger story to tell, with German-Jewish refugee Ludwig Guttmann pioneering a change in medical attitudes towards patients with spinal injuries in WWII.  Guttmann, as played by Eddie Marsan, is one of the lesser-known heroes of the 20th Century, a man who kept his principles while his country abandoned them, and relocated to a country fighting for freedom (even if rubber bedpans were just as scarce).  The journeys of his patients as they regained their independence, courage and zest for life were perhaps no more unpredictable than that of Bushnell and Burnell as they battled to form a team and win gold, but both were well told and positive, both for aspiring Olympian and Paralympian superstars and mere mortals who play and watch sport... on TV.

* coincidentally within two days of the death of Lord Alf Morris, whose campaign for disability legislation changed the lives of millions.