Such subtlety, my dear, is delightful

Press, 10 May 1985, Page 15

Such subtlety, my dear, is delightful

“Mapp and Lucia” is not an island in a remote sea that produces colourful stamps. Rather, it is the latest series from London Weekend Television, in five parts on Mondays at 10 p.m. Judging from the first episode, it will be imperative to watch the remainder. It is mannered, heavily styled and entirely captivating. The main characters begin with Lucia (Geraldine McEwan — remember the Bishop’s dreadful wife in “Barchester”) who is a lovely, silly poseur, a creature of much style and little substance. Her amazing speaking voice seems to span two or three octaves within a sentence, cracking and booming like that of an adolescent boy. By the end of the first episode, in full flight, she was making single words rise and fall like Chinese kites, whilst being so perfectly in 1930 s appearance as to have a neck like a seedy, pallid giraffe. Her foil is Miss Mapp, played with frenzied abandon by Prunella Scales, Sybil Fawlty peeping out to good advantage. She is a complete mistress of the careering, headlong walk. Lucia is very clever and scheming, but she is matched by Miss Mapp because she in turn is so perfectly, studiedly obtuse. Bumbling about in this female dominated world of English villages, is George. With this role, Nigel Hawthorne once again establishes his brilliance. George is an (apparently) absentminded buffoon who wears a red toupee and foppish, effete clothes, giving him the appearance of a dated Frankie Howerd. In this part Hawthorne proves that he can be effective without being angry or even irritable.

The programme is full of subtlely vicious interchanges, with crinkly-eyed “my dears” covering up self-centred, vested interests which are constantly on the verge of clashing like cymbals. Against this background Lucia can make “so sorry” drip with devastating insincerity. The lesser characters fulfil their idiosyncratic des-

Review Ken Strongman

tinies behind the grander lives of the main protagonists. “Quaint Irene" smokes a pipe and paints nudes — “shows you what maypoles are all about.” A vicar from Birmingham has a “little foible” to speak with a Scottish accent, and a delightful failure of a middleaged female organiser keeps saying “now look here you chaps.” There were some sparkling interchanges on Monday. “Funny accent he had.” “Little tipsy I though.” “Scotch perhaps.” Two old army men kept saying things like “please join us for a pre-prandial aperitif” and “she certainly knows how many beans make five.” Speaking of George’s wig: “Not sure about his rug though. Does he take it off or does he leave it on when they’re at a bit of folderol?” Said George had a moment of relief which he acted with superb skill. During the evening he and Lucia had crept to their respective sides of a door connecting their hotel rooms and gently rammed home their respective bolts. The morning after Lucia said “whatever Freud may say, we are strong enough to draw a veil over it.” George’s twitch of relief was as palpable as Cecil the ram’s at the end of the season. “Mapp and Lucia” is entirely delightful, festooned with characters which will linger long in the affections. It ridicules social conventions with flair and shows just how to circumnavigate the proprieties without actually going round them. It also makes it more obvious than ever that Geraldine McEwan is a great comic actress. I shall be going round for days saying “I think we can all manage to squeeze in to the Royce” — which is the sort of thing that those who clash with Lucia are reduced to.