Ruth Jones is on good form here as the British screen legend Hattie Jacques but I really couldn’t help but feel that the character she presented was a far cry for the amiable one we saw on screen and television in the 1960s. Perhaps that is because she was married to comedy actor John Le Mesurier (Robert Bathurst), had two children and after beginning an affair with John Schofield (Aiden Turner) proceeded to relegate her husband to an attic room whilst she moved her lover into her bed. I just didn’t like her very much from here on in. Turner also delivers quite well as his swarthy Schofield provides Jacques with some much needed character-boosting which flies clearly in the face of her subdued husband who is polite, genteel and increasingly fond of the bottle. This film doesn’t really enlighten us on why she was famous in the first place, there is virtually nothing of her famed comedic skills and for me the powerfully pathetic effort of Bathurst was the role that stood out. It does shine a little light on the necessity for people to put on a hypocritical brave face for public consumption, even if the sixties were well and truly swinging, but save for some rehearsals for her show with Eric Sykes and a brief depiction of an edition of “This Is Your Life” this could really just be a fictional drama about sex and low self-esteem.
