Only those with a certain kind of sensibility are likely fully to enjoy every last drop of A Very English Scandal (9pm, 20 May), the drama Russell T Davies has written about the Jeremy Thorpe affair. If, for instance, you’re the kind of person who snorts with laughter when one bisexual man asks another to what degree he leans towards the “spear side”, then you, like me, are going to be in heaven (see also: “Are you telling me that you’re musical?”). If, on the other hand, such campery is not your thing at all – and what a pity, my dear, that is – then you might want to watch Newsnight instead. I’m sure Vince Cable will be along in a minute.
How old are you? Do you know who Jeremy Thorpe was? Do you even care? I was ten when the closeted former leader of the Liberal Party stood trial at the Old Bailey in 1979 for conspiracy and incitement to murder (in 1975, he’d tried and failed to have Norman Scott, the man with whom he’d enjoyed a clandestine affair in the early Sixties, shot dead). But I knew about his antics all the same, largely because his face for a long time appeared in an ITV News title montage. One day, I asked my mother who this horse-faced man with the haunted eyes and too-small hat was, and in typically forthright fashion – a biology teacher, she was a great one for rude diagrams – she briskly told me. Boy, how my young mind boggled. I’ve been fascinated by him ever since, for which reason I’m able heartily to recommend the book by John Preston on which this three-part drama series is based.
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