The Ghost of Richard Harris

Richard Harris was a Hollywood hellraiser who briefly had a second career as a pop star, as he took Jimmy Webb's unlikely song 'MacArthur Park' to the top of the charts. As such, he's somewhat more interesting than many actors. But this documentary feels over-long, with substantial contributions from his family, most of whom confess it was hard to really get close to him. My overall feeling after watching this programme is of a straightforward person who threw himself head-first into life; but there's not much inherent narrative in such a biography, nor are we given a technical analysis of his craft. The story of his work with Jim Sheriden stands out as perhaps the definitive anecdote.