Jeremy Thrope: Sexual Deviant! Featuring Hugh Grant

[gilbertharding]

Meanwhile: what Russell did next...

Our Friends in the North West? A Dance to the Music of Ariana Grande?

If they wanted to cash in on this thing, someone could do a cracking adaptation of the Francis Wheen book I mentioned up-thread - Strange Days Indeed - about all the various forgotten/half-true political corruption, scandal and paranoia from the Brown Nylon  and Red Barrel decade.

[mjwilson]

Is le Mesurier a more common name than I suspected? Having 2 John le M's around seems a bit ridiculous, had to Google to make sure Russell wasn't taking the piss.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

That was another Google moment for me yeah.

I bet he really did say "not that one" and "he was married to Hattie Jacques you know" all the time too.

[Harry Badger]

When the trial was being reported, every single news report was obliged to say 'not the actor of the same name' whenever his name came up. There is also a solicitor named Leonard Ross who wasn't featured in the film, so that's nearly two sitcom legends.

Bought the book yesterday and am halfway through already. As is often the case with these bizarre cases, there is no detail too small not to be absolutely fascinating. One particularly jaw-dropping incident involving Scott's estranged mother's visit to see her grandchild for the first time I would dearly love to have seen re-enacted:

As she had never shown him much affection as a boy, Scott was sceptical about her motives. He therefore decided to play a trick on her, one that would demonstrate how little interest she had in children. When she arrived, Benjamin was sleeping in their bedroom. While Mrs Josiffe talked to Sue, Scott slipped into another room, where he dressed Emma the whippet in a baby's bonnet and put her in the pram.

He then asked his mother to come in.

Mrs Josiffe peered into the pram. Far from noticing anything amiss, she began saying what an enchanting baby Benjamin was. As soon as she had finished making appreciative noises, Scott called out 'Emma!' - whereupon the whippet leaped out of the pram, still wearing the bonnet. Mrs Josiffe gave a shriek of alarm and keeled over. She never came back.

Auberon Waugh's election address as the Dog Lovers Party candidate in Devon North was banned by the High Court but was printed in The Spectator, which was itself then pulled from release - it can be read here http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/28th-april-1979/7/citizens-of-barnstaple-and-voters-of-north-devon-u.



At a slight tangent, Mary Wilson died yesterday, which according to Joe Haines in Glimmers of Twilight (another must for lovers of farcical 70s political goings-on) means that Marcia Forkbender's memoirs can now be released, having sat in a Bloomsbury safe for the last forty years. Also, I really must read the Wheen book.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

I'm going to have to get the book aren't I. Sounds like the producers of this actually left mad shit out for plausibility reasons.

Incidentally, Marcia Falkender is still a member of the House of Lords and has never spoken there.

[Pinckle Wicker]

Wow, Falkender's Wiki page makes for very interesting and downright bizarre reading.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_Falkender,_Baroness_Falkender

I particularly enjoyed reading about Harold Wilson breaking into her garage, with help from her brother, in order to get his 'papers' back that she had stolen from him.

[Bad Ambassador]

That's nothing, take a look at her website.

https://thelavenderlist.com/

[gilbertharding]

She seems very defensive. (she won't sue for that, will she?)

[Satchmo Distel]

IIRC the TV news coverage of the trial focused on the murder plot rather than "sexual deviant" faux shock but I suspect the tabloids went for the latter while having 16 year old stunnas on page 3.

It's worth recalling that Simon Hughes* denied being gay until 2006, which prompts the question of whether the Thorpe case could still have happened in today's supposedly less homophobic climate.

*not The Analyst

[Jockice]

It's worth recalling that Simon Hughes* denied being gay until 2006, which prompts the question of whether the Thorpe case could still have happened in today's supposedly less homophobic climate.

*not The Analyst

The Simon Hughes who is standing next to me on the first year school photo then? Whose dad was the music teacher?

[Isnt Anything]

IIRC the TV news coverage of the trial focused on the murder plot rather than "sexual deviant" faux shock but I suspect the tabloids went for the latter while having 16 year old stunnas on page 3.

i remember my homophobic Dad fuming at the tv coverage saying 'what does him being homosexual have to do with it, why do they have to keep mentioning it, i dont want to know what these people get up to in their private lives' with my Mum saying 'but in this case it has everything to do with it...'

i never really paid attention myself so dont know if it really WAS mentioned a lot or if my Dad was just being hypersensitive to such things as usual.

[Zetetic]

I guess the problem of portraying gay characters at times when being gay was either illegal or deeply frowned upon is that there will always be elements of lying, subterfuge and duplicity to their characters.

Scott is the most sympathetic character in it because he's the most open about who he is.

Mmm, and I think that RTD is generally quite interested in the impact that closeting had, and still has, on people's experiences and characters.

That's not really, true, though. The pub landlady and Scott's girlfriend weren't like that. They were both wholly sympathetic characters.

And Marion Thorpe perhaps.

[Panbaams]

A slight bump. The latest episode of Private Eye's podcast, Page 94, has some interesting detail on the magazine's role in exposing Thorpe. (There's also an article that covers a lot of the same ground in the latest issue.)