I never thought I’d be thanking Marc Bolan for rescuing my Sunday night viewing. But that’s what happened last weekend.
I was dangerously close to hitting the urgent exit required button on BBC1’s latest period drama, when Fleabag’s hot priest Andrew Scott burst onto the screen dancing to T. Rex’s overlooked classic Dandy In The Underworld.
The ensuing two minutes or so of sumptuous TV did just enough to persuade me to overlook The Pursuit Of Love’s faults, of which there were many.
The main problem was that, for viewers, it was more the pursuit of a storyline. A pursuit that continued all the way to the end of this disjointed opening episode.
You know those expensive two-minute promotional trailers in which the BBC boasts how great its drama is? This adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s between-the-wars romp was like watching an hour-long compilation of those.
Noisy scenes crashed into even noisier scenes, with barely a thread to hold them together and rarely a character who seemed worth investing in.
The fact that the sound was all over the place – too loud one minute, too mumbly the next – merely added to the confusion.
And I haven’t even mentioned that moment when you clocked that the two cast members who had been caught having an off-camera dalliance in Rome – Dominic West and Lily James, pictured – were playing middle-aged father and teenage daughter.
In terms of awkward TV moments of the week it was a toss-up between that and Alastair Campbell marking his Good Morning Britain debut – and ruining several hundred thousand breakfasts – by explaining to Goldie Hawn how “those kissing scenes” in There’s A Girl In My Soup had awakened something in him as a 12-year-old boy.
For most viewers, I suspect enjoyment of this flashy three-parter will come down to one thing: whether they can bear to watch a bunch of luvvies dressing up and showing off their actorly talents for three hours.
I reckon I’ll just about have the stomach for it. The soundtrack helps a lot. As do the performances of James, who, as debutante Linda Radlett, is not half as annoying as those endlessly plugged pre-publicity trailers led us to believe; the aforementioned Scott as Lord Merlin; and Freddie Fox as banker’s son Tony Kroesig.
Fox in particular catches the eye, giving it the full Lord Flashheart as he does what members of his famous family dynasty have always done best: acting.
Cousin Laurence take note.
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