The Observer - 04.08.2019

38

The Observer

04.08.19

CriticsCritics

The dancing

queen fi nally

gets her due

In new eight-part drama Fosse/

Verdon, we fi nd a long overdue

omission from history fi nally and

thankfully rectifi ed in quite some

style. Gwen Verdon , not a name

now famed in Hollywood, was

the horrendously talented dancer

who, despite having rickets and

leg braces as a toddler (earning the

lovely nickname “ Gimpy ”), acquired

four Tony awards and, incidentally,

taught the likes of Lana Turner ,

Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe

to dance. Importantly, she acted

as muse, co-choreographer and

sometime wife to the better-known

Bob Fosse , the alcoholic, chain-

smoking, obsessive, egoist director

who gave us in-turned knees and

“jazz hands” and Sweet Charity and

Cabaret and Chicago.

Yet Verdon was no less obsessive

in her own manic attention to

detail – there’s one grand sequence,

in the double bill that aired last

night, where she fl ies from Berlin

to New York and back just to pick

out a monkey costume. She rightly

identifi es Fosse’s If You Could

See Her as utterly not requiring

a comedy chimp suit, but the

prettiest damn chimp imaginable.

The result, an overall darker and

cleverer take on Cabaret than the

producers had ever wanted Fosse

to take, can be seen for posterity;

Amol Rajan,

presenter of the

‘honestly valuable’

documentary

How to Break

Into the Elite.

BBC

Michelle Williams as Gwen Verdon in

BBC Two’s ‘phenomenal’ Fosse/Verdon.

Eric Liebowitz/BBC/FX

“informal business” dress (me

neither), with no one to ask or

advise what that even is, knowing

when to swear or to languidly rest

your feet on a desk, all these tiny

gradations – that so baffl ed A maan

and Elvis and the other, delightful,

overqualifi ed souls.

Rajan was relatively restrained

throughout, and there was a

charming nod to one man who had

helped him hugely, the toweringly

fair Matthew Wright (I still miss

his chaperoning of what is now

Channel 5’s relatively unsubtle

Jeremy Vine show ). But some of

those statistics were truly appalling

for those of black or brown or poor

white skin, with brains and charm

and organisational skills, who can’t

even get on the fi rst rung because of

a perceived absence of “polish”.

Rajan only really bared his teeth

at the very end, concluding that

in way too many cases employers

are still falling for the heinous

myth that “ if you sound posh, you

must be clever”. Elvis got into the

building, fi nally , and also came out

Michelle Williams

is wonderful as a

long-forgotten dance

coach to the stars in a

winning new drama,

while a study of class

confi rmed too many

depressing truths

Fosse/ Verdon BBC Two

How to Break Into the Elite

BBC Two

Young, British and Depressed

Channel 4

Euan

Ferguson

Television

with one of the best insights when

he said: “No one’s reminded of

themselves when they look at me”,

but not so Amaan.

I hope this is followed up

in six months and there’s far

better news, but I also hope that,

while accepting very few folk are

immune to a certain fl awless easy

charm, I fi nd myself increasingly

wishing it was not so.

Sa nah Ahsan , somewhat bravely,

tackled the subject of mental

health in another must-watch of

a programme, Young, British and

Depressed , at a febrile time when to

even question , say , whether young

people have defi nable medicalised

“problems”, rather than are just,

say, going through exams and

adolescence, is to risk accusations

of belittling or, worse, stigmatising

their troubles. The killer statistics

in this Dispatches show were that

68% of 16-to 30-year-olds say they

have a mental health problem,

but in a survey of 1,000 GPs, the

consensus was that 58% of young

people are wrongly misdiagnosing

Joel Gr ey’s hissed fi nal line – “she

voodent look Jewishhh at all ” – can

still evoke shivers.

This is a phenomenal treatment

of a truly engaging story, and a time,

which now seems just glimpsed

out of the half-blinked corner of an

eye. It’s fi lmed lushly , with gleeful

panache, and Michelle Williams

is never less than wonderful as

the absurdly overlooked Verdon.

Sam Rockwell is an actor gutsily

confi dent enough in his own looks

to be able to pull off the worst

comb-over since Gregor Fisher ’s

1980s Hamlet ad, and still think it

sexy, but he had such just-so style,

and the hats, and the smoking,

and the lanky legs and well-cut

trousering, that he (almost) made

it so. It reminded me a lot of that

grand series Feud of a couple of

years ago : one of those stars, Jessica

Lange (Joan Crawford ), apparently

spent a while with the dreadful

but engaging roué Fosse in his

dwindling years.

But it’s in the rekindling of

Verdon that this series’ strength

lies: in the story behind the fi lms,

we are roughly awakened to what

was really going on inside female

lives in Hollywood Babylon in

the 60s and 70s. It includes an

astounding turn by Kelli Barrett as

Ms Minnelli , reaching many growly

plateaus that Liza-with-a-Z could

have only aspired to, but this is

merely one joy among many: a dark,

sophisticated delight.

There were so many stats

swimming around last week in

a couple of honestly valuable

programmes that I began to fear I

was being circled by fact-sharks,

but a few still permeated. The

least eye-opening, sadly, was

that a 2:2 degree obtained by

the “right” sort – normally

white, posh-ish, with “soft

skills”, such as unfl appable if

misplaced confi dence in one’s

own abilities – is more likely

to get an entry, even a look-in,

to a high-paying job than a

working-class equivalent

with a fi rst.

In How to Break

Into the Elite,

Amol Rajan , the

BBC’s sparky

media editor ,

did a generally

bang-up job of

taking us through the many, many

ways – some relatively innocent:

who hasn’t used family connections

to garner a job in the media?

(actually, me); some squalidly and

openly nepotistic – in which class

plays a far larger part, still, in society

than we seem inclined to admit,

despite all high-blown mouth-music

of “diversity” and “inclusiveness”.

Some of the usual reasons were

covered (rich parents able to cover

you during internships),

but it was the intangible

others – knowing what

to wear when invited to a

job interview stipulating

РЕЛИЗ

ПОДГОТОВИЛА

ГРУППА

"What's News"

VK.COM/WSNWS

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS