Categories Lucky Jim

Lucky Jim Review

Lucky Jim Wasn’t an Unpleasant Ride

by Gareth McLean | The Guardian | April 11, 2003

Lucky Jim (ITV1) was Christmas cosy. The “happily ever after” of Jim Dixon’s triumph over adversity, snobbery and pretension, his getting of the girl and landing of the dream job, was cockle-warming. The jazzy soundtrack and lovely period detail – fig rolls, Lyons Corner Houses, headscarves, Bakelite telephones, Arthur Askey – were most soothing, verging on the Heartbeat. And the casting was a veritable selection box of treats and truffles.

Stephen Tompkinson blundered, Robert Hardy blustered, Helen McCrory whinnied, Denis Lawson sauntered and Keeley Hawes looked luminous (and very tall). There was even the requisite appearance by an ITV favourite in a surprising role: Hermione Norris in rollers, brandishing a cigarette and a smokin’ attitude as the saucy Carol Goldsmith.

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Categories Lucky Jim Print Media Reviews

Masterpiece Theatre cracks a smile with the charming “Lucky Jim”

Get “Lucky”

by Don Dale | January 1, 2003 | Style Weekly

PBS-TV’s next “Masterpiece Theatre” broadcast, “Lucky Jim,” is a winsomely charming comedy, likeable for a number of solid reasons. Chief among them is the story, based on a book by Kingsley Amis; the two main characters, played by Stephen Tompkinson and Keeley Hawes; and the nostalgic 1950s soundtrack.

Amis created quite a stir in British literary circles when “Lucky Jim” was published in 1954. First called an angry young man, Amis quickly established himself instead as a master of satire, malcontented rather than irate. His target was the intellectual milieu and those who wallowed in it, and the eponymous hero of “Lucky Jim” was something new: a working-class man, well-educated but unapologetically middlebrow.

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Categories Media Print Media Reviews Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night at the Donmar Warehouse – Review

Harrowing hilarity

By Paul Taylor | October 28, 2002 | The Independent

He looks as though his copious blubber has been constrained from birth in a wing collar and buttoned-up pinstripe suit and that he must have emerged from the womb with that self-important beard and punctilious moustache. His gait is an effeminately officious cross between a march and a scamper; his tone is a prissily sibilant sneer; and he is forever consulting his watch with righteous impatience. At night, his locks are lovingly protected by a lady’s hairnet.

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