2021
Sky TV from 19 February 2021
Directed by John Hay
Screenplay by John Hay and David Logan
Based on ‘An Unquiet Life’ by Stephen Michael Shearer
CAST:
Hugh Bonneville – Roald Dahl
Keeley Hawes – Patricia Neal
Sam Heughan – Paul Newman
Geoffrey Palmer – Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Cantebury
Conleth Hill – Martin Ritt, Patricia Neal’s agent
Darcey Ewart – Olivia Dahl
Isabella Johnson – Tessa Dahl
The best part for me is the animated title sequence. Superb. That notes Dahl’s other career as a pilot and adult short story author, which we will hear none of in the film.
So it’s a biopic of Roald Dahl and his wife Patricia Neal. It’s only a short slice of their lives, rotating around the death of their seven year old daughter in November 1962 from encephalitis following measles. As the end credits show, Dahl and Neal became major advocates for measles vaccine in later years. No, it’s not a lot of fun. It’s a very sad film. James and The Giant Peach is dedicated ‘To Olivia” as is The BFG. The film involves the writing of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (inspired partly by Tessa Dahl). At the start, his career is on a precipice … James and The Giant Peach sold 2,633 copies (which is why a first edition is so valuable … Abe books has first US editions at £12,000 and £10,000).
Like so many children’s authors, Dahl was reputed to be something of a domestic monster (see Enid Blyton, who is mentioned … Neal says Kids want Enid Blyton, not the twisted crap that comes out of your head). That comes out in reviews, but not really in the film. He is angry, traumatised by the death, his relationship with Patricia Neal nearly breaks down, but it seems a valid response to the situation. Hugh Bonneville and Keeley Hawes are both marvellous emotive actors.
The two outstanding sequences for me involve Geoffrey Palmer (playing the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dahl’s old schoolmaster) and Sam Heughan (playing Paul Newman). The first is when they go to the archbishop for comfort. Palmer, in his last film, is exceptional as the judgemental cleric. He tells the bereaved couple that Olivia will be in heaven. They warm to this, saying with her dog and birds. He is firm about heaven, ‘No animals … NO DOGS ALLOWED!’ I knew a friend at university who was at Canterbury Choir School. He always said Fisher was an utter bastard. Palmer captures it!
Then Patricia Neal was invited to play the housekeeper against Paul Newman in Hud, and goes to Hollywood with the children. I very much enjoyed her pair of line rehearsals with ‘Paul Newman.’ The first goes wrong. She changes it and gets Newman’s approval (he is also played as a bit of a bastard).
The whole is low-key, trying to invoke the English countryside in the way The Dig did, but much less successfully for me. It’s admirable in its lead performances rather than entertaining. Much of their biography is left unsaid … Neal suffered strokes in 1965 and they divorced. Dahl only died thirty years ago, leaving two very famous daughters, Tessa and Sophie. Maybe it’s too early (and the estate far too wealthy to screw around with!)
A minor note on the pencils (which I know from a history book dedicated to pencils). Roald Dahl was known for only writing with yellow pencils, which were American. Throughout the film he’s seen using these yellow pencils, with a desktop sharpener. Other writers have foibles – in the late 70s I would only use fine point black Bics (fine point were yellow too) on unlined A4 80 gram paper. I grew out of it.
My kids and grandkids loved Dahl’s work deeply, as did I. I feel he was much more than the irascible, deeply bereaved man in this snapshot of 1962. I wanted to know more about 1916 to 1961, and indeed 1963-1990.
On a personal note, Dahl’s children’s books are nowadays so tied to Quentin Blake’s illustrations. Quentin Blake illustrated the first ELT book I used professionally in 1971, Success With English by Geoffrey Broughton. The students called it ‘the monkey book’ and loathed it, as did I.
When I did my first book, Survival English in 1977 for Mary Glasgow Publications, they had samples drawn by Quentin Blake, and sent me the original sketches. I said I would withdraw from the project if they used them, as they were so heavily identified with that Success With English series. I posted back the samples and we had dreadful bland illustrations instead. Probably that was my biggest publishing mistake! Though it has competition.
Dahl wrote about Geoffrey Fisher in his first volume of autobiography, Boy. My memory is a bit hazy, but he recalled the future archbishop as an enthusiastic caner, providing victims with a wet towel to wipe away the blood. Dahl reported being horrified when he saw him performing the coronation in 1953.
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My ex-choir boy friend made other allegations about Fisher that in 1968 seemed beyond belief, but in the light of the last twenty years and clerics, seem potentially credible.
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