Hattie

As with so many biopics it covers the basics but not especially accurately. The lives of people are complicated and impossible to cover in 90 mins so its to be expected but there are quite a few issues with this one.

There is no villain of this story - Hattie and her husband John are almost strangers in their own home from the way they are portrayed, and none of this need happen if they had learned to communicate, rather than pass like ships in the night. Then along comes a beautiful man, with issues of his own, who gives Hattie something she's been lacking for a long time - the belief that she was a beautiful, sexual being.

And regarding Hattie's weight: she is shown in this to be unhappy with her size, but being big gave her work that she would not have had otherwise. One can sling mud at her, call her horrible names, but the public encouraged her to stay that way.

The sensitive handling of this piece does exactly what it should - it shows that it was a sad situation where people failed to talk to one another and took things, and each other, for granted.

The darker side of the lives of actors associated with the 'Carry On' series have already provided material for several TV dramas; and this time it's the turn of Hattie Jacques with the emphasis on her ill-fated marriage to John LeMesurier.

Ruth Jones portrays Jacques as a woman with a healthy sexual appetite and great generosity of spirit that made her easy prey for good-looking young men. The film itself - beset by distracting directorial tics by Dan Zeff including wobbly steadicam photography and the inevitable switches between black & white and colour - attempts to turn this simple tale into an Antonioniesque study in alienation.

The chronology is often rather suspect, Robert Bathurst doesn't really look or sound much like Le Mesurier; while the single most egregious omission is that there are only a couple of fleeting references to Eric Sykes.

And I simply cannot believe that Esma Cannon was capable of swearing so much.

A first class drama telling the story of Hattie's affair with driver and lodger John Schofield.

As a kid I grew up on The Carry on films, adoring Hattie Jacques, growing up believing that the stern faced actress was frigid and somewhat dowdy, little knowing of the passions that burned away. Ever feminine, I will forever adore Hattie, events here won't change my opinion of her.

John Schofield seemed to have a profound affect on her, Adrian Turner is great in the role, they don't miss a moment to show off his ripped body.

Ruth Jones does a great job, she makes Hattie sweet, conflicted and incredibly feminine. Great job from Bathurst also.

John Le Mesurier has always struck me as such a sad character, adorable, but definitely somewhat withdrawn, I wonder if this is exactly what he was like. Could anyone exist in such a situation?

Loved it, 9/10

I'd love to know what John's car was.

Not much happens in this episode, except for Hattie Jacques (Ruth Jones) having an affair with John Davies (Aidan Turner) and eventually leaving her husband John le Mesurier (Robert Bathurst). The real problem lies with le Mesurier, who is so laid back as to be inactive, with little or no skill in the bed department. Compare with Davies, who shows the capacity of a stag in the way he ruts Jacques in the bedroom.

So far, so good. But that's mostly what the play is about. We learn little about Jacques's career, not that of le Mesurier, while Davies - played by an actor more celebrated for getting his kit off in POLDARK - is nothing more than a coarse yob. We learn at the end of the episode that eventually left Jacques for someone else, which seems vaguely appropriate for such an itinerant figure.

Jones gives a creditable impersonation of Jacques, but le Mesurier as portrayed by Bathurst is nothing more than a wet blanket, completely unlike the man we came to know as Sereeant Wilson in DAD'S ARMY. He lacks any strength of character, even when Joan rescues him from a potentially difficult situation as the third man in a love triangle.