239 lines
7.5 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
239 lines
7.5 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
culture
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tvandradio
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8391758
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# Christopher and His Kind, BBC Two, review
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## Chris Harvey reviews Doctor Who's Matt Smith as writer Christopher
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Isherwood in the biopic Christopher and His Kind (BBC Two).
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![Doctor Who's Matt Smith and Douglas Booth in Christopher and His Kind][1]
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Doctor Who's Matt Smith and Douglas Booth in Christopher and His Kind Photo:
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BBC
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7:32PM GMT 18 Mar 2011
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[Comments][2]
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I wonder if the club scene regularly documented in ITV2's reality show The
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Only Way Is Essex will ever be remembered with the same reverence accorded to
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the Berlin cabaret scene recorded by the novelist Christopher Isherwood. He
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portrayed a hedonistic subculture with a cast of chancers, exhibitionists and
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wannabes, and a taboo-breaking attitude to sex that would have positively
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vajazzled polite British society of the time.
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**Christopher and His Kind** (Saturday, BBC Two) dramatised the collision
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between that subculture and the ideology that led to its extinction: Nazism.
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It was based on Isherwood's memoir of his time in Berlin in the early 1930s,
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with Doctor Who's Matt Smith playing Isherwood. One of his first tasks was to
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embody the novelist's distinctively mannered speech, to "set the record
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straight" about his reasons for being in the city. "I could say I went because
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of what was happening politically," he said. "But in fact I went because of
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the boys."
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Isherwood followed his friend, the poet WH Auden (Pip Carter), to Berlin,
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where he discovered the unrepressed spirit of sexual freedom in a cellar bar
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called the Cosy Corner. There he was warned by Auden that the rent boys who
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frequented the club were "nearly all rampant hetters", the meaning of which -
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for anyone not familiar with this short form for heterosexual - he went on to
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make extremely clear.
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There were sex scenes, rampantly unheterosexual ones, of course, which weren't
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particularly salacious but probably deserved an award for loudest on-screen
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paroxysms to be heard in a while. There was a bit of S&M as well but it didn't
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look much fun. The piquancy was mostly in the script, with Carter giving Auden
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the delivery his deadpan one-liners deserved. "I do loathe the sea," he said,
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at one point. "It's so wet and sloppy."
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Carter wasn't the only heavyweight character actor on show. Lindsay Duncan,
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whom many viewers will remember for her performance as Margaret Thatcher in
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the drama about her final days as Prime Minister, took on the role of
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Isherwood's controlling mother Kathleen, delivering a brittle, icy chill every
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time she reminded Christopher of just what she had gone through to bring him
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into the world. Toby Jones, who played Swifty Lazar in the film Frost/Nixon,
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had been recruited to play Gerald Hamilton, the shady businessman with an S&M
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fetish, who had been the study for Isherwood's Mr Norris. He lost a little of
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his charm and became seedier. In fact, there was no great thing made of the
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retrospective glamour that has been accorded the era.
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## Related Articles
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* [Christopher and his Kind: in pictures][3]
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18 Mar 2011
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* [Doctor Who's Matt Smith: I'm not handsome enough to play Bond][4]
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17 Mar 2011
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* [Christopher and His Kind, BBC One, preview][5]
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17 Mar 2011
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Of course, what the makers of Christopher and His Kind wanted to avoid was
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being compared with Cabaret (BBC Two, tonight), the 1972 film that took
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Isherwood's Berlin and turned it into a musical, not least because Liza
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Minnelli as Sally Bowles sucked every available mote of starlight into her
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kohl black eyes, black suspenders and top hat to create one of cinema's most
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show-stealing performances.
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Christopher and His Kind didn't have Minnelli or indeed Sally Bowles, but it
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had the real-life person who had inspired her, Isherwood's friend Jean Ross,
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who was played by Imogen Poots. Minnelli's Sally Bowles had been a star. Poots
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didn't want her Jean Ross to be too good a singer. If the real Jean had been
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that good, Poots has said, she wouldn't have been wasting her time hanging
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around with Isherwood in the cabarets of the Weimar Republic, she would have
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been on her way, perhaps, to the life she dreamed of in Hollywood.
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She made Ross convincingly fragile beneath layers of attitude. "Oh, Mummy
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would nearly die if she knew what an old whore I am," she declaimed. Her
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cabaret scenes, performing numbers such as I Don't Know to Whom I Belong, felt
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emotionally revealing, but as she carefully bummed another note in imitation
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of the real Jean Ross, you could almost hear the ghost of Bob Fosse. "Shall we
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try that again? This time with a little less historical veracity."
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It meant that Smith - cast, it has to be said, against type as the dainty
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Isherwood - stayed centre stage. He gave the writer great warmth and presence,
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and captured a little of the naivety of a young man faced with difficult
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choices. Ought he to be writing for a publication run by Oswald Mosley? How
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would he protect his street-sweeper lover Heinz (Douglas Booth) if he left
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Berlin? "We must stand by our kind Christopher," a Jewish department store
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owner told him, "whatever the cost."
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Christopher and His Kind showed a deft touch with its themes and lots of
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cinematic flair. It also wasn't afraid to spear the narcissism of its main
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character: "The only cause you really care about, Christopher, is yourself,"
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Auden told his friend at the end. "But you've turned it into an art form."
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[X][6] Share & bookmark
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Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz
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[What are these?][7]
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* Share: [Share][6] [ ][8] [ ][9]
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[Tweet][10]
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8391758/Christopher-and-His-
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Kind-BBC-Two-review.html
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Telegraph
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## [TV and Radio][11]
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* ### [Culture »][12]
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* ### [Books »][13]
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* ### [Doctor Who »][14]
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* ### [Chris Harvey »][15]
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[![TV Guide][16]][17]
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### [TV Guide UK: searchable TV listings][17]
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[![Paul Merton presents the Birth of Hollywood][18] ][19]
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### [Today's TV highlights][19]
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[![][20] ][21]
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### [Britain's Got Talent: where are they now?][21]
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[![][22] ][23]
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### [Doctor Who - the top ten best Doctors][23]
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[X][6] Share & bookmark
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Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter
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Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz
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[What are these?][7]
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Share:
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* [ ][6]
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* [ ][8]
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* [ ][9]
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* [Tweet][10]
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* Advertisement
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![][24]
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telegraphuk
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Please enable JavaScript to view the [comments powered by Disqus.][25] [blog
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comments powered by Disqus][26]
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sponsored features
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