Hattie (2011)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Television Film

Director: Dan Zeff

Writers: Stephen Russell, Andrew Merriman

Cinematographer: Ian Moss

Composer: Stephen McKeon

Cast: Ruth Jones, Robert Bathurst, Aidan Turner, Jeany Spark, Jay Simpson, John Bell, John Reader

This well-acted, low-key BBC drama details the slow, strange disintegration of Hattie Jacques and the impossibly nice John Le Mesurier’s marriage, which began when she took a young lover, continued when said toy-boy moved in as a lodger, persisted when the two Johns (the lover was also called John) swapped beds, and came to fruition when the future Sgt. Wilson moved in with the future Mrs. Hancock, all without the press getting the merest hint of a sniff of it. Iain.Stott