A Very English Scandal · Season 1 · BBC One / Amazon Prime Video
A Very English Scandal Season 1
A Very English Scandal Season 1 is a MUST-WATCH, BollyMeter 8.8/10. 3 episodes on BBC One / Amazon Prime Video from 20 May 2018.
Updated
What BollyAI Thinks
Russell T Davies wrote A Very English Scandal as a dark comedy about power and cowardice - and Stephen Frears directed it with the dry, furious wit the material demanded. Three episodes reconstruct Jeremy Thorpe's rise as Liberal Party leader, his long affair with Norman Scott during years when homosexuality was illegal, and the conspiracy that ended with a hired gunman shooting Scott's dog on Exmoor. Critics lined up behind it: 97% on Rotten Tomatoes from 69 reviews, Metacritic 84. The praise concentrated on two things: Davies's script, which treats Thorpe's mendacity as a product of institutional rot rather than personal evil, and the performances. Hugh Grant shed his romantic-comedy residue entirely; Ben Whishaw's Norman Scott - vulnerable, infuriating, ultimately right - gave the show its moral centre. The Wall Street Journal called it sublimely written; RogerEbert.com judged it Frears's best work in over a decade. A template for the British prestige miniseries that followed.
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The Room
“Stephen Frears does his best work in over a decade - a must-see.”
RogerEbert.com“This rollicking, sublimely written work leaves no doubt that Thorpe was guilty.”
Wall Street Journal
Standout Episodes
The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.
- E1Episode 18.4
A sharp premiere where gossip hardens into paperwork, paperwork into threat, and threat into Jeremy's coldest possible solution.
The moment: Thorpe's first encounter with Scott, played against the social comedy of postwar England, makes the danger of the relationship visible before either man does.
Full review of E1 → - E3Episode 39.0
The trial episode, in which Thorpe faces the full public reckoning. Grant gives the series its defining performance in a man stripped of every defence except the establishment's residual willingness to protect its own. The finale lands with the particular chill of a true story that has no satisfying resolution.
The moment: The verdict, and the camera's long pause on Norman Scott's face as the acquittal is read out.