There are probably two good reasons for watching the recent Beeb drama, Christopher And His Kind. The first is relatively highbrow and the other is utterly salacious, so I shall begin with one and move onto the other.
As a biopic of the author Christopher Isherwood, it’s genuinely a nicely put together bit of drama. Rather to my shame, before this the closest I ever got to any of Isherwood’s work was a rather disinterested viewing of Cabaret, so it’s only fair to point out that both the man and the story were substantially more interesting than I had initially expected.
Covering Isherwood’s time in Berlin during the rise of the Nazi party and up through WWII, this dramatisation manages to tell what is ultimately quite a personal narrative while still successfully keeping a fairly even finger on the developments of a much wider social background. Matt Smith (Doctor Who) generally acquits himself well as Isherwood, though at the outset it is sometimes a little hard to disassociate him from the role of the Eleventh Doctor. It is perhaps not surprising, not just because Doctor Who is such an iconic presence but because Smith’s portrayal of the young Isherwood’s wide-eyed and enthusiastic discovery of Berlin is, at least to begin with, not a million miles removed from The Doctor’s excitement over fezzes and Jammy Dodgers. That said, the further into the drama you progress and the older Isherwood gets, any sense of similarity seems to fizzle away. By the time Isherwood returns to visit in the 50s you realise there’s been a surprisingly subtle transformation going on, and with the addition of a little greying hair and some glasses Smith manages to draw out an unexpected sense of maturity. It’s one that rather belies both his youth and comparative inexperience.
Matt Smith may be the main draw for a lot of people but it should be mentioned that he is surrounded here by a genuinely solid supporting cast as well. Imogen Poots (Miss Austen Regrets) is great as the gaudy yet fragile Jean Ross, the nightclub singer on whom Isherwood based the character of Sally Bowles, while the relatively unknown Pip Carter is a deliciously insouciant W.H. Auden. If he’d sprawled any more languidly he’d probably have fallen off his chair. Lindsay Duncan (Rome) appears rather briefly but to good effect as Isherwood’s brittle, overbearing mother, and it’s always a delight to see Toby Jones (Creation, Amazing Grace) here stealing almost every scene he’s in as a rather faded old dear up to his eyeballs in both trouble and debauchery.
Which leads rather neatly to the other reason for watching. There is generally quite a lot of sex in Christopher And His Kind. A fair bit of nudity too. More so at the beginning, it sort of peters off as the social issues of Nazism and Isherwood’s love affair with street-sweeper Heinz take precedent, but there’s certainly enough to ignite a flurry of squee among slash-loving Matt Smith fans. And even if, like myself, Matt Smith isn’t exactly your cup of tea there really is no shortage of general eye-candy furnishing the underbelly of 1930′s Berlin. It is perhaps shallow of me to point that out but it did kind of have to be said, and pretending otherwise is ignoring the huge purple elephant in the middle of the room.
More importantly, however, it is not the only reason to watch. Even with all the naughty bits excised you would still be left with what is ultimately a rather touching and effective drama, and as both a one-off piece of TV and a broadly-sweeping primer on Isherwood, it’s definitely worth watching if you can.
Christopher And His Kind is still available to watch on the iPlayer for those in the UK and has just been released on Region 2 DVD.
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Lady T
Lady T is a great lover of British TV, which is helpful as that's mostly what she gets to watch. She strongly believes that tea can't be made using a microwave, that children's programming really was better when she was a kid, and that there's nothing in the world that can't be solved with a liberal application of common sense. She very much enjoys reading but like most of the rest of the world would some day like to write a book herself. If she ever succeeds in doing so there's a pretty good chance she'll never shut up about it. She can be contacted at lady_t_220 @ yahoo.co.uk.
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