The Politician's Husband

Remember Trevor Eve and Juliet Stevenson battling it out over his wandering eye for Minnie Driver?  We'll let you off if not, since it was a long time ago and was only watchable for the titular wife's steely, heartbroken revenge on the man she'd trusted.

Late in the day, Paula Milne has penned a sort of companion piece to the original, although it starts with the better premise of political skullduggery rather than an old-fashioned sex scandal. Whereas the original had an immediately sympathetic character, however, we are introduced to  'political golden couple' Aidan Hoynes and Freya Gardner (David Tennant and Emily Watson) in the middle of their attempted takeover of power.  It proves unsuccessful, largely thanks to the betrayal of best friend Bruce (Brutus?) Babbish (Ed Stoppard).

The drama opens with a pretentious Latin quote about the corruption of the best being the worst, so presumably we are meant to feel that Aidan is a tragically undermined would-be hero, but regardless of your stance on immigration, there is little evidence to back this up.  He sits bored and listless while his constituents relate their problems and is happy to deny to the public that his resignation is anything more than an act of principle.  The Macbeths had at least a prediction of certain success to excuse them - political murder being almost as bad as the physical for ambition-driven ministers - but what appears as the bud of an excuse in Macbeth - a lost child - is full-blown here.  Aidan's patient dad (Jack Shepherd) spells it out for us, and directly to his son, that he threw himself into the "cesspit" of Westminster because his son was diagnosed with Asperger's.  Oh and there's the crack in his bedroom ceiling he spends his nights staring at, so we can only assume he hasn't claimed for extravagant redecoration on expenses....

We are meant to believe that Freya is the pawn of both her husband, to whom she has always taken a back seat, and Bruce, who persuades the PM to appoint her to the DWP as a final snub to his defeated rival.  Freya, however, is already getting a taste for No.10, where she seems strangely to be completely unfamiliar with her surroundings, and she too publicly betrays her husband in a highly unlikely interview by that well-known political bloodhound, Kirsty Wark.  Jeremy Paxman must have had a prior engagement, and by allowing herself to be pinioned on a subject relevant to her personal life, rather than her job, Freya shows herself no able politician.

Clearly this is headed in the multiple-betrayal, "we ruined our family" direction, but do we care?  This portrays the so-called corridors of power as riven with individuals who wouldn't know the Seven Principles of Public Life if they came and threw 2009 Chateau Neuf du Pape all over them.  Uncannily accurate yes, but crucially unengaging of our sympathies.

Appropriate Adult - conclusion

The second and concluding part of ‘Appropriate Adult’ was (once again) unable to maintain the standard of the opener and in this case it seems to highlight the difficulty of dramatizing factual events and the inevitable blurring of boundaries.  Here would seem to be one retelling that needs to be accurate, not only out of respect to those whose lives have been blighted, but also because invention could add nothing to an already ghoulish chain of events.  Yet we hear that some details were wrong and suspect there are other errors.  Janet Leach’s children were not living with her through the investigation and trial, according to her eldest son, and would she have been allowed so much unsupervised access to Fred West?

What these misgivings give rise to is a general feeling of discomfort.  It was far more obviously Leach’s subjective view of events this time around, and weaker as a result.  She is shown as a naive and needy woman, it’s true, but one who commits perjury by denying that she has sold her story.  That same story is the one adapted here for television, so from the viewers’ perspective she is, by default, a classic unreliable narrator.

We wouldn’t dismiss the idea of creating a drama to explore the criminal, immoral and unacceptable acts of which we are capable, nor would we expect it to provide answers, but if its purpose is to promote questioning and widen understanding around this behaviour and our reactions to it, then this ultimately didn’t achieve its aims.  The impact on the victims’ families and friends, and on the Wests’ own relatives, went unexplored, and we discovered nothing of the background or motivations of either Fred or Rose.  To learn that anyone, i.e. someone who isn’t a sexually deviant serial killer, can form a toxic attachment to someone who is everything they morally reject, is no surprise. 

Appropriate Adult

On hearing that Dominic West was to play serial killer Fred West in an ITV drama, our first reaction was to ask why.  In terms of honing your craft etc. as an actor, serial killers must be good roles to get, with no dearth of talent lining up to play the likes of Crippen and Shipman.  However, with this subject matter there’s obviously a fine line between an informing and provocative drama and one that skews the truth and encourages mere morbid curiosity.  As with all matters of taste and decency, it’s hard to judge where that line should be drawn.  The names of Fred and Rose(mary) West conjure in most of us an almost primeval fear, as much, we would suggest, to do with lurid tabloid headlines and the consistent use of the same, instantly recognisable images, as with their crimes.

With regard to the crimes themselves, the details have been mostly withheld, through respect for the victims’ families and a fear of copycat behaviour that goes at least as far back as ‘On Iniquity’, published in 1967 in response to the trials of Brady and Hindley.  Very few of us are incapable of imagining horrors as terrible as those that happened at Cromwell Street, and as a result the Wests appear as modern bogeymen.  What is harder to imagine is the response of the victims’ families to a dramatisation of what is probably the worst thing ever to happen to them.  How could anyone else presume to suggest that it is good to remember, rather than to forget, or that a dramatic re-enactment will provide any sort of catharsis?  How could it avoid being deeply upsetting?

According to ITV, an early decision was taken not to portray the crimes, but to centre on the investigation, and in particular the appropriate adult of the title, who provides the everyman response to the discoveries.  This largely voids the voyeur argument and doesn’t detract from the shocking nature of these events.  Some viewers may object to the portrayal of Fred as a man with a roguish charm, every inch (or playing?) the yokel as he flirts with and manipulates Janet Leach, evades questions, or describes matter-of-factly how he dismembered his daughter.  Apparently it’s an accurate portrayal.  We're on slightly shakier ground with Ms Leach, who despite her fear and revulsion won't give up the case, and subsequently sold her story to a tabloid for a six-figure sum.

There was also humour in last night’s first half, the sort of gallows humour to be found in crime dramas and also, one suspects, in police stations and prisons all over the country.  “We’re here to search for the remains of your first wife, Fred,” says DC Savage (Sylvestra Le Touzel, compelling as always) as West waxes lyrical on the beautiful Gloucestershire countryside where he has buried her.  Dominic West and Monica Dolan as Fred and Rose are entirely believable, while Emily Watson, rather less mousy and more glamorous than she is playing, nonetheless conveys the bewilderment of someone fresh from training, immersed in a complicated family of her own, and out of her depth with what she must now face.

There will probably never be consensus on fictional depictions of real crimes, with real victims.  We would tend, generally, to prefer documentaries about something so recent and so sensitive.  'Five Daughters', shown early last year, won general acclaim by focusing entirely on the lives of the victims and the subsequent effects on their families, something that doesn't feature at all in 'Appropriate Adult'.  However, what this drama has done is to humanise demons: people who have families, children, homes and jobs, and live superficially innocuous lives are capable of the most extreme, violent, disgusting acts.  Seeing the Wests as something removed, something ‘other’, misplaces a fear which, disturbingly, should be much closer to home.