#the suspicions of mr whicher

[petercapaldi-press]

INTERVIEW

Peter Capaldi: 'People ask me to tell them to #@*! off'

After playing everyone's favourite foul-mouthed spin doctor in The Thick of It, Peter Capaldi was surely destined for Hollywood. But as the actor tells Gerard Gilbert, he's no Hugh Laurie...

Saturday 09 April 2011 00:00 BST

Damn and blast Twitter. I had been hoping to be the bearer of good tidings – that The Thick of It, supposedly dead and buried with New Labour, is set to return. Instead, the show's creator, Armando Iannucci, has already Tweeted his followers that: "Work begins on scripts next month". I had heard the happy news from the man without whom The Thick of It would merely be a very funny political satire instead of the second greatest British sitcom of the Noughties (after Peep Show; discuss) – Malcolm Tucker himself, Scottish actor Peter Capaldi.

"Well, that's kind of you to say," says Capaldi, referring to his role in its greatness, when we meet high above a beautiful spring morning in London, in ITV's South Bank offices. I had been told that the interview might not take place because of a "family tragedy", the nature of which I had absolutely no intention of prying into, but he seems relaxed and in good humour. "The show's back for 2012 for the Olympics," he says. "We've already got Roger Allam, who's our Conservative minister, and we have Jo Scanlan, who plays the civil servant, so there'll still be a team that the audience is familiar with. But there will also be new Liberal Democratic elements, so I was very surprised that they asked me back, because I'm not very sure what role I will have."

But then The Thick of It without Malcolm Tucker would be like The Office without David Brent. A spin doctor whose inventive use of bad language (the show famously has a "swearing consultant") has given birth to a rich back-catalogue of filthy and very funny "Tuckerisms", including the following random (and printable) sample from the most recent series: (talking of a minister) "He's so dense, light bends around him", (of another MP who has just turned down the Northern Ireland Office) "Do you know that 90 per cent of house dust is made of dead human skin? That's what you are to me", as well as the horribly funny "I'll be with you in two shakes of a crying baby".

But I'm glad for more reasons than my own selfish enjoyment that The Thick of It is set to return, because frankly I was starting to get a little worried about Capaldi. He has form, you see. His career has been a succession of peaks and troughs, the high points including being plucked from obscurity in his mid-twenties to play opposite Burt Lancaster in the 1983 film Local Hero, and, 12 years later, winning an Oscar for Best Short Film, his self-penned Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life. And now I was concerned that he wasn't capitalising on the success of The Thick of It and its movie spin-off In the Loop, doubts that emerged at Christmas when I noticed him riding a camel in BBC1's Nativity. He's been over to America several times since In the Loop opened there to critical acclaim, but says: "My problem is that there's something in my character... I think it's just laziness.

"At the moment everybody wants you to go [to America] and do the pilot season – they keep saying, 'Don't you want to be Hugh Laurie?'. I mean I love Hugh Laurie but I don't want to be a guy who goes to work every day for nine months of the year in a corner of Burbank. I really don't. I like doing a bit here and a bit there and strange things, and I think that's held me back."

One of those "bits" is the reason we're meeting – to promote his role in a new ITV period drama, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, a rather superior Victorian whodunit adapted from Kate Summerscale's novel – but it's not even as if he has the lead role (Paddy Considine plays the eponymous Mr Whicher). Capaldi plays, instead, the father of the prime suspect. "I originally thought it's not my kind of thing. This is a Sunday evening... ITV... chocolate-boxy Victorian thing, but then the director spoke to me about how he wanted to do it, which was much bleaker. And Paddy was in it as well and that signals a certain thing about it".

And frankly it's nice for Capaldi to be able to pick and choose roles, for as recently as 2005, when The Thick of It came along, he was on the verge of packing it all in. "What I've learnt being an actor is that you've got to be lucky. I got less lucky and nobody was interested. If a part came up it would be for the main corpse's friend's brother who was having problems with his marriage. Two scenes. You'd have to go up for that and then you wouldn't get it and then you'd just feel like shit.

"I suddenly got flickers of interest for two jobs and one of them was Armando's. I was called in to read for the BBC in the morning, for a part I could do standing on my head and I know I'm not going to get this part, so by the time I met Armando two hours later I'd had enough of the whole thing."

Capaldi says his heart sank when Iannucci announced that he wanted to improvise a scene. "I hated improvisation because in my early days as an actor, improvisation meant somebody had just come down from Oxford and they were doing a play above a pub in Kentish Town and the biggest ego would win. But with Malcolm Tucker, I don't quite know why, but I could feel a little click where I knew how to do this."

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this audition was that Capaldi and Iannucci had not met earlier. Despite their age difference (Capaldi is 53, while Iannucci is 47) they not only share the same Scottish-Italian upbringing, but also hail from the same tenement blocks of the Springburn area of Glasgow. "I'm amazed that my mother never mentioned it to me before," says Capaldi. "I said to her that I'm working with Armando Iannucci and she said, 'Oh, I know Armando... he built the little cupboard we had in our scullery'. And of course she was talking about Armando's father who was also called Armando. He did a bit of joinery and stuff."

Classically for his heritage, Capaldi's parents were in the ice-cream business. "We had a café that was at the bottom of the tenement that we lived in," he says. "My childhood growing up in that part of Glasgow always sounds like some kind of sub-Catherine Cookson novel of earthy working-class immigrant life, which to some extent it was, but it wasn't really as colourful that."

His parents moved the family – including an older brother and a younger sister – to suburbia, "a Wimpy house in Bishopbriggs", where Capaldi's skill at drawing eventually led to a place at the Glasgow School of Art, his peers including the future official war artist, Peter Howson.

"It was 1976 and punk was just exploding," he says about forming a band called The Dreamboys. "The worst name for any band ever – especially a punk band. We were originally called The Bastards From Hell. The trouble was, we were always much more interested in being funny than being serious" – hardly surprising, with Craig Ferguson, the future stand-up turned US talk-show host, on drums. "We were the only band John Peel never gave a session to in Glasgow."

They did, however, support Gary Glitter one night after the real support band dropped out. But Capaldi's interest in music and art was about to be eclipsed when, returning home drunk one night from the pub, he found the Gregory's Girl film director Bill Forsyth chatting to his landlady, a costume designer. "I think I just riffed for half an hour and somewhere along the line he said, 'I'm going to get that person in my film', but I didn't know it was going to be a proper film."

Local Hero was a proper film with a proper big Hollywood movie star, Burt Lancaster, playing a Texan oil tycoon with designs on a Scottish fishing village. Its Ealing-esque charm helped turn Local Hero into a global hit, and encouraged Capaldi to seek his fortune in London. "I didn't have an agent... the world of acting was very alien. The sense I got was that everything about me was wrong: I spoke wrong, I walked wrong, I didn't have any training, so my task was to rub myself out and begin again.

"If I'd been wise I would have gone straight to America where people still to this day recognise me in the street, but then there's every chance that nothing would have happened. I'd have become an alcoholic Scotsman living bitterly in San Diego with pictures of me and Burt Lancaster on the wall of my trattoria that nobody comes to."

This last comic riff is typical of Capaldi, a colourful and naturally amusing speaker who bafflingly claims he rarely does interviews because he never knows what to say. But back to London in the mid-1980s, where our clueless ingénu finally lands a job at the Young Vic. "I absolutely loved it. I was starting to learn about acting, and gradually I was getting bits and pieces of telly – Crown Court and Minder. Times were different then. Nowadays, kids... young actors... they go straight to LA before they've even done anything."

It was around this time that Capaldi says he started becoming chippy about not being English. "It was clear that people would have preferred me to be Daniel Day Lewis," he says. "I just kept thinking there is no market for me, so I would become this other thing... a young, English, middle-class man. But that didn't work either, because there's plenty of those.

"For a long time I carried this... it's not resentment, it's fear. It was a fear of not being good enough, not being Daniel, or not being Hugh Grant or not being Colin Firth. It took me years to realise it was me bringing that stuff to the table – that when I would get into a situation if I was working with people, I'd blame them. Once I realised that it was a great eye-opener." When did that happen? "Probably not until I was about 40."

In frustration, Capaldi decided to write and direct his own short film, Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life, incredibly winning an Oscar for it. "That was very confusing for me and a lot of people because I won it as an actor who was having a go at directing. Luckily, I had another script, over which a bidding war exploded. That's why I've got a house in Crouch End and I'll always be grateful to Miramax for buying it.

"I thought I was going to be Ridley Scott now, or Steven Spielberg, and I flew over to New York to set up production and then they said they're not going to do it. It was over. I had to work because I'd spent all my money – on the house – and I remember the Oscars after the Oscar I won, I was standing in mud in a field in Rickmansworth directing a dog food commercial."

Capaldi shares that house in Crouch End with his wife, Elaine, an actor-turned-TV producer, and their 18-year-old daughter, Cissie. But the familiar pattern was reasserting itself, with a big break followed by Capaldi's seeming inability, or unwillingness, to capitalise on it. After The Thick of It, it seems unlikely that Capaldi will again fall into the slough of despond in which Iannucci found him in 2005. He may remain a "jobbing actor" (his words), but the jobs will be bigger, the auditions less humiliating. "It definitely changed the way people in the business perceived me," he says. And playing Malcolm Tucker changed the way viewers perceive him, too. He played a doctor recently in the Jo Brand hospital sitcom, Getting On (which he also directed) and he brought a reptilian menace to the role that has a lot to do with the baggage he now carries from Malcolm Tucker. This new persona has even affected the general public.

"Instead of asking for autographs, people ask me to tell them to 'Fuck off' ... sometimes I mean it," he says. "I saw a thing with Alastair Campbell the other day where he said exactly the same thing and I thought, hey, that's my line..."

Has he ever met Campbell? "Once, when Channel 4 thought it'd be funny to place us next to each other for a dinner. I'd always avoided him because I'd feared he'd be very charming, which he was, but it was very interesting and it did actually affect the way I played the part. Not that anybody ever said to me that Tucker was Alastair Campbell. We spoke as much about Peter Mandelson, or Bernard Ingham, but gradually the dynamic of the show begins to create its own character."

Tucker is a great comedy creation, and Capaldi is acutely aware that such characters don't grow on trees. "Maybe it's because I've been an actor for such a long time, but I think, unless you're a big star, you don't really have much control over anything. I've never been able to make any plans. The only time I've tried to make plans the cosmic sledgehammer has intervened and something else has happened. You just have to wait and see what comes your way, so that's what I do".

'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher', ITV1, Easter Monday

Peter Capaldi: a life on screen

1958 Born in Glasgow, to Scottish-Italian parents who run an ice-cream business

1976 Forms a punk band, The Dreamboys, with Craig Ferguson (now a comedian) on drums

1983 At 23, is spotted by director Bill Forsyth and cast with Burt Lancaster in Local Hero

1988 Having moved to London to work as a jobbing actor, he appears in Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons

1993 Writes and stars in his first film, Soft Top Hard Shoulder

1995 The next film he writes, Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life, starring Richard E Grant, wins an Oscar for Best Short Film. Off the back of this success, his script Moon Man is bought by Miramax. It never gets made

2001 His next film, Strictly Sinatra, flops at the box office and he returns to acting, with roles in Fortysomething, Judge John Deed and Foyle's War

2005 Finds fame playing a spin doctor in the TV series The Thick of It, Armando Iannucci's acclaimed political satire

2009 Stars in In The Loop, a big-screen spin-off that gets a screenplay Oscar nomination

2011 Directs Jo Brand's BBC hospital drama Getting On; appears in ITV's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

By Holly Williams

[misshyacinthbridgerton]

Well…..I didn’t expect that plot twist with Luke Thompson’s character in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

[claudia1829things]

"THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER ON ANGEL LANE" (2013) Review

"THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER ON ANGEL LANE" (2013) Review

Over a decade ago, the ITV network aired a television adaptation of Kate Summerscale's 2008 true life crime book, "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House", starring Paddy Considine. The movie proved to be such a success that producer Mark Redhead had followed up with three other television productions featuring the main character, Jack Whicher. The first of these sequels was 2013's "THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER ON ANGEL LANE".

The 2013 television movie began with Jack Whicher coming to the aid of a wealthy middle-age woman, when a young thief snatches her purse inside a London pub in London. After retrieving her purse, Whicher discovers that the woman, Susan Spencer, is searching for her missing niece, a 16 year-old girl named Mary Drew. Miss Spencer learns of Whicher's old position as a police detective and hires him to find the missing girl. Whicher eventually discovers Mary's brutally murdered body inside the police morgue. Both eventually learn that before her death, Mary had given birth to a child and someone had stolen a family heirloom from her. Miss Spencer hires Whicher to act as her private consultant and find Mary's killer.

When I first saw "THE MURDER ON ANGEL LANE", I had assumed the story began sometime after the events of 2011's "THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER AT ROAD HOUSE HILL". It took a rewatch of this second television movie for me to realize that it was set during the events of the 2011 movie - sometime between the four or five years between Mr. Whicher's failure to get the killer prosecuted for murder and the latter's eventual confession. I was able to ascertain this conclusion, due to the hostile behavior of Police Commissioner Richard Mayne toward Whicher and the one of the supporting character's comments. This setting also explained Whicher's occasional doubts regarding his skills as a detective. Now whether the other two Whicher television movies that followed were also set during this period is a matter I will eventually discover.

Unlike "THE MURDER AT ROAD HOUSE HILL", "THE MURDER ON ANGEL LANE" proved to be a genuine "whodunnit" story. This particular case was not some true crime narrative. And Whicher did not discover the antagonist's identity until the finale act. I am not saying that this particular difference made the 2013 television movie an improvement over the first one. But in a way, it felt a little refreshing to view a murder mystery/period drama, instead of a mere true life case set in the far past. "THE MURDER ON ANGEL LANE" started as an investigation into the disappearance of a well-born adolescent managed to transform into a lot more. Like "THE MURDER AT ROAD HOUSE HILL", this story also proved to be a family drama beset with murder, betrayal and corruption. But unlike the 2011 movie, greed also play a major role in "THE MURDER ON ANGEL LANE". I thought screenwriter Neil McKay and director Christopher Menaul handled the movie's narrative very well, with a minor exception or two. I also admired how McKay used the unresolved events of THE MURDER AT ROAD HOUSE HILL" to not only provide the Whicher character as an emotional obstacle for him to overcome, but also an excuse to place him in the dangerous situation that he found himself in the movie's final act.

I do have a few complaints about the plot for "THE MURDER IN ANGEL LANE". And it centers around a small group of quibbles regarding the television movie's final act. Whicher's investigation led him to a third visit at an insane asylum, where he found himself incarcerated as a patient. A part of me felt relieved that this particular scenario lasted less than five minutes. However, another part of me found this sequence rushed and contrived for it did not take Whicher long to receive help in making his escape. Following on the heels of the asylum sequence, Whicher finally confronted the murderer. But he did so alone . . . and without contacting his old friend, Chief Inspector Adolphus "Dolly" Williamson or other members of the Metropolitan Police. I understand why Neil McKay had written the confrontation scene this way. I simply found it implausible and wish he could have created another way to close the case.

I certainly had no complaints about the movie's production values. David Roger returned to the "MR. WHICHER" series to serve as production designer. As he did for "THE MURDER AT ROAD HOUSE HILL", Roger managed to re-create the look and style of early 1860s Britain with the additional work of Paul Ghirardani's art direction and the set decorations of Jo Kornstein, who had also worked on the "ROAD HOUSE HILL" production. Only in this production, his vision extended to the streets of London. Tim Palmer served as the film's cinematographer. I thought he did a solid job, but his work did not exactly blow my mind. Lucinda Wright also returned to serve as the movie's costume designer. As she did for the 2011 television movie, her work for "THE MURDER ON ANGEL LANE" perfectly recaptured the early-to-mid 1860s without being either shoddy or over-the-top.

Paddy Considine returned to reprise his role as Jack Whicher. As he had done in the first movie, the actor did an excellent job of quietly capturing the character's reserve nature, intelligence and skill for criminal investigation. However, Considine managed to add an extra touch of poignancy, as he project Whicher's occasional bouts of insecurity in the wake over the Road House Hill case and his minor failures during his investigation of this case. Both William Beck and Tim Piggott-Smith reprised their roles as "Dolly" Williamson and Commissioner Mayne from from the first film. Like Considine, both actors gave first-rate performances. And both added extra touches to their performances - especially in their characters' attitudes toward Whicher - in the wake of the Road House Hill debacle. Olivia Colman provided the movie's emotional center as the well-born Susan Spencer, who hired Whicher to first, find her niece Mary Drew and later, find the latter's killer. She and Considine, who had co-starred in the 2007 comedy, "HOT FUZZ", worked very well together. Shaun Dingwall gave a very subtle performance as Inspector George Lock, the main investigator of Mary's murder and the only one willing to give him a chance in helping the police. The television movie also featured solid performances from Mark Bazeley, Alistair Petrie, Billy Postlewaite, Angela Terence, Justine Mitchell, Sean Baker, Sam Barnard, Christopher Harper and Paul Longely.

Of the four "MR. WHICHER" television movies, I must admit that "THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER ON ANGEL LANE" is my least favorite. I believe the last fifteen to twenty minutes had been marred by some contrived writing that I believe had rushed the narrative's pacing. However, I still believe it was a first-rate production in which screenwriter Neil McKay had created an intriguing whodunnit involving a major family feud, betrayal and greed. And director Christopher Menaul, along with a talented cast led by Paddy Considine had skillfully conveyed McKay's story to the screen.

[jamesnorthcotefanblog]

James Northcote as Linus Finch in ‘The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: Ties That Bind’ (2014)

[lukethompsondaily]

Luke Thompson Master Drive

Crossed out titles are not in this drive but can be easily found (exceptions marked with asterisks and detailed under the cut). Crossed out and red means that although the productions have been recorded there are no files available.

If you want access to it just DM me!

STAGE

• Shakespeare's Globe: A Midsummer Night's Dream (2014) • Hampstead Theatre at Home: Tiger Country (2014) • Globe on Screen: Julius Caesar (2015) • The Complete Walk: Romeo and Juliet (2016) • Hamlet (2018) • National Theatre Live: King Lear (2018) • Tikkun Olam (2022)* • A Little Life (2023)

TV

• In the Club (2014‑2016) • The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher (2011‑2014) • Kiss Me First (2018-2018) • Transatlantic (2023-2023) • Bridgerton (2020‑ )

FILM

• Dunkirk (2017) • Making Noise Quietly (2019) • Misbehaviour (2020)

AUDIO IN PROGRESS

• Between the Ears: The Shepherd by Frederick Forsyth • The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky • My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier • The Unknown Kimi Raikkonen by Kari Hotakainen • Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave • Hard by a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili • Seventeen by Joe Gibson • The Ticket Collector from Belarus by Neil Hanson and Mike Anderson

* = This one was available for a year to rent online but it seems that no one did a screen recording so it’s unavailable for the time being.

[marzipanandminutiae]

speaking of constance kent, have you read summerscale’s the suspicions of mr whicher?

I have not, but I know it's based on her case!

My main interest in Constance Kent is in her early life story's resemblance to that of Lucille Sharpe- again, I suspect GDT knew about her -but it's wild what happened with her life after that. Like...she murdered a child. Ostensibly to get back at her abusive stepmother, by "taking something she loved away," and that's by Kent's own admission.

And then she turned herself in. After her prison sentence was served, she went to Australia, changed her name, and lived a long rest of her life in relative peace. The nursing home workers, near the end of her life, described her as a sweet old lady. She had an incredibly affectionate obituary.

Again, she murdered. A child. She slit her four-year-old stepbrother's throat in cold blood.

Imagine if your favorite elderly person to visit in the nursing home turned out to have straight-up killed a kid when she was 16.

[arthur-lesters-tummy]

i'm reading "the suspicions of mr whicher" which has an introduction talking about how detectives/fiction came to be. "the first fictional sleuth Auguste Dupin, appeared in Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Murders in the rue Morgue' in 1841, and the first real detectives in the English speaking world were appointed by London metropolitan police the next year (1842)"

and a paragraph i think you'll find VERY interesting;

"A Victorian detective was a secular substitute for a prophet or priest. In a newly uncertain world, he offered science, conviction, stories that could organise chaos. He turned brutal crimes - the vestiges of the beast in man - into intellectual puzzles. But after the investigation at Road Hill, the image of the detective darkened. Many felt that Whicher's inquiries culminated in a violation of the middle-class home, an assault on privacy, a crime to match the murderer he had been sent to solve.

He exposed the corruptions within the household: sexual transgression, emotional cruelty, scheming servants, wayward children, insanity, jealousy, loneliness and loathing. The scene he uncovered aroused fear (and excitement) at the thought of what might be hiding behind the closed doors of other respectable houses. His conclusions helped to create an era of voyeurism and suspicion in which the detective was a shadowy figure, a demon, as well as a Demi God."

makes a lot of sense why Arthur chose to become a detective beyond just his observation skills...

[nisabaismymistress-blog]

Peter Capaldi as Samuel Kent in "The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: The Murder at Road Hill House."

[doumekiss]

[dnickels]

In a similar vein I'm listening to Lady Audley's Secret, which isn't good necessarily but I am absolutely loving every second of it, which is the next best thing. I do think people dismiss it out of hand for the purple prose and paper-thin "mystery" but the former is just the 1860s, you gotta eat their food the way they make it, and the latter I think is forgivable because it's not a whodunnit or even a whydunnit, its what happens when the Angel in the House commits a crime-- not just any crime, a crime against the home, the family-- so huge that there's not a real mechanism of retribution without bringing the whole structure down. Yes there is a literal mechanism of policing (its the police) and the book would be much shorter if anyone decided to get them involved but Robert's struggle is about how to remove this load-bearing from his Uncle's household without it all coming down around their ears an ruining everything. The ENORMITY of it all. The UNSPEAKABLE nature of transgression when committed by a saintly little wife. It should not be possible within the High Victorian understanding of the world and yet here we are. There's so much commentary on women as adversaries and allies across class lines, about how they can use their class/gender position to evade punishment but also cannot escape the reality of being a permanent dependent. There are also a few banger lines along with truly unhinged digressions. Concentrated ideology powerful enough to kill a small dog. You can really see in the influence of the Road House murder and how deeply that shook people (finished The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher in January and it was such a good read)

[katylightingdesign]

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, by Kate Summerscale, Adapted by Alexandra Wood.

Produced and Performed at Watermill Theatre, Newbury. May 2023.

Directed by Kate Budgen 

Design by Amy Jane Cook

Video Design by Rachel Sampley

Photos by: Pamela Raith

[petercapaldi-press]

INTERVIEW/WRITING

Peter Capaldi – This much I know

Sun 24 Apr 2011 01.05 CEST

Alice Fisher

The actor, 53, on Glasgow, crime and winning an Oscar

Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

It was great being brought up in a Glasgow working-class tenement. It wasn't miserable and it wasn't poverty stricken. It felt very safe, full of delights. I grew up in Springlands, where they made locomotives, and you could always hear industrial sounds, though they're gone now – there's no more industry.

Crime is interesting. It's huge and fascinating and it's what my business, TV and film, is largely based on. But the realities are tragic and in crime drama you rarely see the pain of bereavement or any consequences. It's reduced to a chess game.

I'm not terribly well read. My wife forces books into my hands and insists I read them, which I'm grateful to her for. She made me read War and Peace. The whole thing. It was amazing, but I had to hide it. You can't walk round reading War and Peace – it's like you're in a comedy sketch and you think you're smart.

I went to art school in the days when it was what you did if you didn't want to be like everybody else. You wanted to be strange and different and art school encouraged that. We hated the drama students – they were guys with pipes and cardigans. We took acid and painted murals.

I haven't met one person who hasn't been kind about Malcolm Tucker [in The Thick of It]. People come up and say they love me and ask me to swear at them. They just want me to tell them to fuck off, they're happy with that.

Drawing is the only thing I've found in which I can lose myself completely. I love it. It started as something that relaxed me, but now it's a struggle because I'm pushing myself. The day-to-day sketching is fraught.

I'm fascinated by fire. When I was four I wore an American fireman's hat all the time and I still have one in my office today. Glasgow used to be called Tinderbox City; there were always fires, people getting killed. There's a photo of me and my daughter in New York next to a fire engine – oblivious to the fact that it was on call at the time, dealing with some catastrophe.

Winning an Oscar [for best short film] was an odd thing that happened to me when I was young. I'm still tempted by the thought of Hollywood, but everyone just wants you to sign up for seven years to a comedy show.

I absolutely hate mowing the lawn. When I hear the mowers starting I want to kill myself, it's the sound of death approaching. Hoovering's OK, but I never in my life wanted to have a lawn and certainly never wanted to mow one.

I've been obsessed with death since I was born. I see signs of death in everything. Mowing the lawn is one of them. I'm 53 now, so with your parents, peer group, you're surrounded by death. Oddly it makes you feel more alive.

The best advice is to get on with it. I'm very prone to falling into depressions – not clinical, just "can't be bothered". It's such a waste of time.

I'm pleased to still be here. I was lucky not to have gone to drama school. I had no idea about process or career so I took what I could get. I did many terrible things, but stumbled occasionally into things that were good.

Peter Capaldi stars in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher on ITV1 on 25 April

[quoteoftheweekblog]

…

2/9/24 - SEBASTIAN JUNGER (AND ‘LORD OF THE FLIES’)

'Strangely, the sea doesn't get tedious to look at - wave trains converge and crisscross in patterns that have never happened before and will never happen again. It can take hours to tear one's eyes away.' (Junger, 2010, p.58).

REFERENCE

Junger, S. (2010 [1997] ) 'The perfect storm - a true story of men against the sea'. Amazon.com [E-book]. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perfect-Storm-True-Story-Against-ebook/dp/B004APA538 (Accessed 31st August 2024).

*****

…

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TO MY FRIEND IN MILTON ON SEA FOR THE PHOTO OF THE SEA AT THE END OF HER ROAD

BEFORE LEAVING FOR THE OTHER END OF THE COUNTRY AND HER SCOTTISH VISIT

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HELMSDALE, north of Inverness, south of Thurso

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INCLUDING SEAL

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&

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Leaving Scrabster en route to Orkney

VIA

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SCAPA FLOW

&

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Last one - farming fish on Skye

XXXX

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*****

CONGRATULATIONS 2024

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2024 IS THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PUBLICATION OF ‘LORD OF THE FLIES’ - WILLIAM GOLDING - 17/9/1954

NEWS REPORT

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CONGRATULATIONS

*****

FOR BOOK GROUP AUGUST 2024 

20 (90) GLORIOUS YEARS

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'They sleep, talk, watch T.V., and read; there are high school dropouts who go through half a dozen books on the Grand Banks.' (Junger, 2010, p.57).

LAST MONTH I ALSO READ

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AUGUST BLUE

ON LOAN FROM OUR READER LEADER

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GO SET A WATCHMAM

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THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER

… always has a reminder here for us as the brother who was widely considered to be one of the murderers is buried in our churchyard.

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OTHER READERS

…

THE DISPOSSESSED

I couldn't get into it.

&

…

RESTORATION

It’s bad behaviour turning to worse behaviour and then getting better again.

&

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CABAL

I always enjoy Michael Dibdin.

MEANWHILE THE OTHER HALF

…

THE CONTINENTAL OP

 … short stories but I didn't really enjoy it.

&

…

A DOCTOR IN AFRICA

It was light easy reading despite the subject matter.

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…

I AM PILGRIM

I WAS THE ONLY PERSON IN THE U3A BOOK GROUP NOT TO LIKE IT.

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AND OUR READER LEADER

…

THE COUNTRY GIRLS TRILOGY

I’m on the last one but not sure why she was banned by the Catholic Church.

&

…

DEMON COPPERHEAD

THE REASON WHY I’m Still only half way through is because I read a page and then fall asleep.

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PLUS

WELCOME TO OUR NEW MEMBER

HOORAH

WHO HAS RECENTLY READ

…

THE SALT PATH

📚📚📚📚📚

…

BOOK GROUP

*****

QUOTE OF THE WEEK 2011 - 2024

…

13 EPIC YEARS

*****

FROM THE ARCHIVE

…

26/8/19

*****

[claudia1829things]

"THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER AT ROAD HILL HOUSE" (2011) Review

"THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER AT ROAD HILL HOUSE" (2011) Review

Roughly five years ago, a relative of mine had suggested I watch a BBC television movie about a Victorian-era murder story. Although it aired on the Amazon Prime Video streaming channel (and still does to this day), I had assumed it was a documentary. To my surprise, it turned out to be a television movie called "THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER AT ROAD HILL HOUSE".

Before watching the movie, I had quickly discovered that the production was an adaptation of Kate Summerscale's 2008 non-fiction book, "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House", winner of Britain's Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction for that year. Hence, the reason why I had initially assumed this was a documentary. The book was an account of the real-life murder of three year-old Francis Saville Kent in 1860 Wiltshire. Francis, the three year-old son of a "Factory Commissioner" for the Home Office named Samuel Saville Kent, was found murdered on the Road Hill House estate in Wiltshire, leased by his father. The child's nursemaid, Elizabeth Gough, had announced his disappearance. Two estate hands eventually found Francis' body inside a privy-house, with knife wounds on his chest and hands, and his throat deeply slashed. Outrage over the brutal murder of a prominent man's child, Scotland Yard had dispatched Detective Inspector Jack Whicher to solve the case.

Whicher's assignment to the case proved to be a godsend for Gough, who immediately fell under the suspicions of Police Superintendent John Foley of nearby Trowbridge. The latter would have pressed for her arrest if Whicher had not cleared her of any further suspicions. However, the Scotland Yard detective's suspicions rested on another member of the household, namely Kent's sixteen year-old daughter, Constance Emily Kent. Whicher also began to suspect Constance's brother, fifteen year-old William Saville Kent. The detective believed Constance (with her brother's help) had sought revenge against their former nanny, Mary Pratt Kent, who had married their father following the death of their mother. There had been suspicions that Kent and his second wife had an affair during his marriage to Constance and William's mother. Since young Francis had been conceived during their father's second marriage, Whicher suspected Constance or both of them of murdering the three year-old boy.

"THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER AT ROAD HILL HOUSE" did not strike me one of the most fascinating murder mysteries I have seen on film or television. This did not surprise me, considering the television movie proved to be more of a fictionalized account of an actual case that had been solved over 160 years ago. I would say "THE MURDER AT ROAD HILL HOUSE" was more of a historical drama or a "true life" crime movie than a murder mystery. After all, it did not take the protagonist very long to produce a believable suspect, halfway into the narrative. The movie eventually became a mental tug-of-war between Whicher and Constance, in which the former struggled to convince the latter to confess to the murder. At the same time, Whicher and his close friend and colleague, Adolphus "Dolly" Williamson, raced to find physical evidence to support his suspicions. Despite their success in discovering hard evidence against Constance, the pair's efforts ended up being stymied or sabotaged by Superintendent Foley, head of the local police. Not only did Foley resented an outsider becoming the lead investigator in the Kent case, he seemed offended that any working-class man would accuse the sixteen year-old daughter of a respectable, middle-class citizen like Samuel Kent, of murder. What made this even worse for Whicher is that many of the locals and the media seemed to share Foley's class bias.

I have to give kudos for the movie's production values. I believe David Roger's production designs really captured the look and style of 1860s Britain. And I believe he did so without being either extravagant or cheap. Roger's work was ably assisted by Jo Kornstein's set decorations, Kate Evenden's art direction and Matt Gray's photography. Lucinda Wright's costume designs managed to perfectly captured Roger's balanced look for the movie's setting. Were her costumes accurate for 1860s Britain? I honestly cannot say so. Regardless of accuracy, I do believe Wright's costumes managed to perfectly captured the essence of the movie's characters across both gender and class.

"THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER AT ROAD HILL HOUSE" featured some solid performances. At least from the supporting cast. Performers like William Beck, Emma Fielding, Kate O'Flynn, Tim Piggott-Smith, Ben Miles, Donald Sumpter, Charlie Hiett, Julian Firth, Sarah Ridgeway and Antony Byrne all gave competent and solid performances. However, I believe a few did give what I consider to be the movie's best performances. Naturally, I felt Paddy Considine was sensational as the solid, yet intelligent Jack Whicher. I thought he did a superb job of conveying Whicher's growing frustration of the impediments that made his investigation to reach a successful conclusion. Equally sensational was Alexandra Roach, who gave an enigmatic and skillful performance as the cool and supercilious Constance Kent. Peter Capaldi's portrayal of Constance's father, Samuel Savill Kent, struck me as surprisingly complex and ambiguous. Capaldi did a great job of conveying hints that the public's suspicions of his character might be justified. I also found myself very impressed by Tom Georgeson's performance as the narrow-minded Superintendent Foley. The actor did an excellent job of portraying his character's class bigotry and resentment toward Whicher's role in the investigation.

As murder mysteries go, "THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER AT ROAD HILL HOUSE" seemed like an ineffectual effort. When the main protagonist manages to discover the true culprit halfway into the production, it seems a waste of time to label the movie as a murder mystery. However, "THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER AT ROAD HILL HOUSE" proved to be a very effective and well-done historical drama about a famous murder case, thanks to a skillful direction from James Hawes, a first-rate adaptation written by Neil McKay and superb performances from a cast led by Paddy Considine. As a fictionalized account of a famous true crime, the television movie proved to be quite fascinating.

[nanashi-reads23]

Usually in an unsolved murder case the public feared that the killer might strike again. Here, though, the fear was that he or she could be duplicated in any home. The case undermined the very idea that a locked house-hold was safe. Until it was solved, an English mother would sleep uneasily, haunted with the idea that her house harboured a child-killer - it could be her husband, her nanny, her daughter.

Kate Summerscale, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: Or the Murder at Road Hill House

[muzz-khans-journey]

A Versatile Career: Muzz Khan's Journey In Acting And Music

Introduction:

Muzz Khan, born in 1981 in Burnley, Lancashire, is a versatile and talented actor and DJ. His performances are captivating. Khan's on-screen presence is like a symphony of emotions, while his musical talents extend beyond the stage. As a DJ, he creates crowd-pleasing sets that pulse with energy and emotion, transporting listeners to abandon their daily 9-to-5s. His life and career is a testament to the enduring power of artistic exploration, where one individual's passion transcends tradition to create a legacy that echoes through entertainment’s rich history.

Early Life And Education:

Muzz Khan, born in Burnley and raised in Nelson, Lancashire, was born to shine in the world of performing arts. His journey began at Edge End High School, where the BBC chose and elected to film an episode of the Patricia Routledge-led,  detective series "Hetty Wainthropp Investigates." This visit ignited his passion for acting and sparked his determination to pursue his dreams. Khan attended Accrington and Rossendale College to study a BTEC National Diploma in Performing Arts, where he honed his skills and built a foundation for his future. It is noted that he received a Distinction grade there for his studies.

He then attended the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in South Kensington, London, where he trained alongside fellow students and now renowned actors Rupert Friend, Natalie Dormer, Tom Mison, and Elyes Gabel. His time at drama school wasn’t a happy one but he was encouraged by Rupert (Friend) to continue his studies and not throw in the towel. Khan's journey from Lancashire to London and later to Los Angeles, is a testament to his passion, tenacity, pursuit of excellence, and the single-minded vision to set the stage for his remarkable career.

Acting Career:

Muzz Khan began his professional acting career in 1999 with a voice-over (ADR) role in "East is East." Khan initially auditioned for a part as one of the core cast members but his lack of experience at a young age and casting fit were not deemed to be quite right at the time. He has since appeared in various UK television shows, including "No Angels" and "Bradford Riots”, on Channel 4. "24: Live Another Day", for Fox Television, "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher”, for ITV Studios, and "Black Mirror: White Christmas", playing the amusingly-titled character of Fappuccino. In 2016, he starred in the American, ABC musical comedy "Galavant" with Robert Lindsay, Timothy Omundson, Weird Al Yankovic and others. Khan's versatility is clear in films like "Me Before You", "WONKA" and "The Hatching".

He has also performed at prestigious theaters, including the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Noel Coward Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, the Bush Theatre and The Wyndhams Theatre in London’s West End. Khan's talent extends to radio drama, narrating novels such as A.A Dhand’s Virdee detective series – which has just been commissioned for television by the BBC for 2024 – and bringing stories to life in dramas on BBC Radio 4.

Music Career:

Muzz Khan, a renowned DJ, began his music career in 2007 in London. He gained recognition in the music scene, performing as a resident at iconic venues like Pacha London, the Ministry of Sound, KOKO and the O2 Academy Brixton and renowned events like Mixmag, EP/IC, Defected and Hed Kandi. Khan's energetic and crowd-pleasing sets, specializing in house music and multi-genre, have captivated audiences across the UK and beyond.

He has performed at venues like Bush Hall, Electric Brixton, Studio 338, Lightbox London, EGG LDN and Ibiza's Space Nightclub and Es Paradis. Khan served as the resident DJ for the 2016 UK tour of "Rave of Thrones" alongside actor Kristian Nairn. He is currently a resident DJ for Hed Kandi and has made appearances in music videos, including "Rather Be" by Clean Bandit, "Feel It All" by KT Tunstall, and "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life" by Seamus Haji.

Personal Life:

Muzz Khan, a devoted husband and father to a loving family of five, finds solace in the sanctuary of his parental world. Nestled in the countryside of Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent. His personal life serves as a testament to the balance between fame and family life, reminding us to cherish the bonds of family, the haven of home and to remain grounded.

Conclusion:

Muzz Khan's career spans acting and music, showcasing his versatility and dedication. For over two decades, he has been a shining beacon in the entertainment industry, captivated by his artistic exploration and innovation. Khan's acting is a symphony of dramatic and comedic delight, while his DJing continues to help dancing crowds to find liberation and freedom through music. His journey is an ever-evolving climb, pushing the boundaries of artistic possibilities and reminding us that the only limit to our potential is the extent of our imagination. Khan's passion, versatility, and dedication to the arts make him a testament to the boundless possibilities of a dynamic career in the entertainment industry, particularly as a working class, British-Pakistani actor.