The Sinking of the Laconia (2011)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/Germany

Television Film

Director: Uwe Janson

Writer: Alan Bleasdale

Cinematographer: Michael Schreitel

Composer: Adrian Johnston

Cast: Ken Duken, Andrew Buchan, Franka Potente, Brian Cox, Jacob Matschenz, Matthias Koeberlin, Frederick Lau, Lindsay Duncan, Ciarán McMenamin, Lenny Wood, Ludovico Fremont, Nicholas Burns, Matthew Aubrey

Though the swooning score occasionally irritates, and there are one or two more clichés than would normally be acceptable, and the staging of the eponymous event itself is generally underwhelming and intermittently laughable, Alan Bleasdale’s long-awaited return to British television – a Second World War set, fact-based tale of compassion and humanism in the most unlikely of settings – is a mostly welcome one, thanks mainly to some fine performances, in particular from Duken, Buchan, and Koeberlin. Iain.Stott