Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Last Tango in Halifax, BBC One, episode one, series two - review
What a relief! Lovely old Yorkshire codger Alan (Derek Jacobi) is alive and well and more determined than ever to just "get on wi' it" and drag his pensioner paramour Celia (Anne Reid) up the aisle. To be fair, Alan's climactic coronary at the close of last year's debut season of Last Tango in Halifax was less a cliffhanger than a minor emotional blip. As the pivot round which all things turn and, as such, the beating heart of this wonderful series, things couldn't very well have progressed without Alan; and given its popularity (the highest rated new midweek drama of 2012) and bumper crop of awards, that was hardly going to happen.
Still, it was nice to see Alan back on his feet again and the oldie romance back on track. That's the beauty of Sally Wainwright's writing – she has that rare and precious knack of breathing life into characters you can really care about. Despite, or precisely because of, their imperfections. Alan can be a bit bull-headed and crotchety, and Celia harbours one or two unappealingly reactionary attitudes. But they're still rounded and human and warm and well meaning – as are most of their children and extended family members, whose sideline trials and dilemmas make up the bulk of the dramatic action.
Take Alan's daughter Gillian (Nicola Walker), a thirtysomething woman whose road to social hell is paved in good intentions - they're just not thought through. "What are you doing?" we were bound to roar, when she decided it was for the best to share with Celia's daughter Caroline (Sarah Lancashire) that she'd drunkenly slept with Caroline's soon to be ex-husband John. With typical Wainwright pith, Caroline didn't so much mind the betrayal ("Have him," she said, "he has a good income") as the timing of it – which magnified its thoughtlessness. "How do people do that?" she asked her mother, unable to keep it to herself, so setting off a fizzing trail of further emotional detonations that led right back to Gillian and exploded in her face.
As the villain of the piece even John doesn't really mean to be bad. In the near-Olympian levels of pathetic self-pity and emotional carnage he creates around him (especially in Tony Gardner's acute portrayal) there's real comedic warmth. It's the kind of touch that keep this drama so humane and grounded and light, yet capable of delivering a powerful emotional punch whenever it wants (as when Alan accused poor Gillian of being "an ongoing disappointment" who'd broken her mother's heart – ouch!). It's also what makes it such a welcome and unmissable returnee to our wintry TV schedules.
Source : http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568414/s/33df0785/sc/17/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cculture0Ctvandradio0Ctv0Eand0Eradio0Ereviews0C10A4582530CLast0ETango0Ein0EHalifax0EBBC0EOne0Eepisode0Eone0Eseries0Etwo0Ereview0Bhtml/story01.htm
