Derek Jacobi

Radio Times review

The first episode of Last Tango in Halifax (Tuesdays BBC1) was perfect, such that I don't think I want to watch another one - or if I do, I'll pretend it's a different programme and this was a precious one-off. Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi were two Yorkshire pensioners, both widowed, who had been separated by chance as teenagers but still lived not too far apart. Pushed onto Facebook by the grandkids, they found each other, met in person, and slowly revealed that each had pined for the other for 50 years or more.

Reid and Jacobi unfurled the fantasy I-love-you-too romance in Sally Wainwright's sparky script until the last scene, when their families burst into the café with their subplots about ex-husbands and tricky children and lesbian affairs and mysterious pasts. There's five more episodes of that stuff, but anything that isn't those two impeccable actors glowing at each other across a teapot will be a cold second-best.

There's nothing too shocking about Last Tango in Halifax, a rather sweet and gentle love story in six parts about two elderly singletons who rekindle their romance from 60 years earlier.

Episode one features an incident of juvenile crime and a car chase, but that is about as racy as things get. Instead, the production wisely concentrates on its two leads, Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid, as they quietly go about their business of acting everyone else off the screen. Nicola Walker and Sarah Lancashire, as the couple's respective grown-up daughters, are provided with substantial subplots of their own, but it will be the incomparable Jacobi and Reid that will draw and hold the audience.

Writer Sally Wainwright has left behind the mean, crime-soaked streets of Manchester and Scott & Bailey to return to the kind of warm-hearted family turmoil she first explored in her hit series At Home with the Braithwaites.

Last Tango in Halifax is a rather sweet love story with, at its heart, an unconsummated romance that reaches back decades. Celia and Alan (Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi, both great) first knew each other as teenagers. But, after a misunderstanding, their burgeoning relationship collapsed and they married other people. Donkey's years later, when they're single once again, the pair re-establish contact through Facebook.

They both have grown-up families now, each member of which has a secret sorrow, or just a secret. There are times when Last Tango in Halifax will make you gasp in disbelief, but because the cast is so good and works so hard to make it all credible, you'll probably be won over.

The titular allusion to Brando, butter and anonymous '70s sex is the worst thing about this new romantic comedy starring Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid. Widowed and in their seventies, a pair of Yorkshire wrinklies reconnect on Facebook having once fancied each other in their teens. Thankfully few obvious gags are made at the expense of these 'silver surfers', with the scenes featuring them messaging each other proving particularly well handled. There's also a canny nod to Jacobi's RSC pedigree when his character Alan Buttershaw quotes Shakespeare in a casual, almost unknowing way. Trying to avoid it becoming As Time Goes By 2.0 though, writer Sally Wainwright puts their respective kids and grandkids through some particularly wild and eyebrow-raising dramas - including lesbian flings among teachers, drunk one-night stands and even the odd unexplained death. It works though, and this first episode nicely sets up a series that could end up becoming an unlikely source of rather cheeky and subversive fun on BBC1.

The ever-wonderful Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi lead this 'it's never too late' love story from writer Sally Wainwright (At Home With the Braithwaites, Scott & Bailey). Celia and Alan fancied each other at school 60 - yes, 60 - years earlier but nothing came of it. Now, thanks to the wonder of Facebook, these silver surfers are back in touch and can finally act on their feelings. That's if they can get over the lifetime of baggage they've got trailing behind, notably grown-up daughters (prim Sarah Lancashire, bolshie Nicola Walker) who have issues of their own.

There are some titles that make my heart sink. Last Tango in Halifax (BBC1) was one of them, because I knew exactly what I was in for from the very start; a light, bitter-sweet rom-com with plenty of outdoor shots of the Yorkshire countryside to draw in the same viewers who lapped up the James Herriot vet tales. With not a hint of butter. And so it proved. Within seconds of their first appearance on screen, every character's life story was pretty much established. The widowed grandparents who used to fancy each other as kids - will they, won't they get together, what do you think? - the struggling grownup children and their dead or feckless partners, and the grandchildren making their way in the world. The only part of the first episode that took me by surprise, was Caroline's (Sarah Lancashire) lesbian dalliance with one of her teachers. Though on reflection, I should probably have seen that one coming, too.

Actually, that wasn't the only surprise. Or the biggest one, which was that despite it all being terribly familiar and predictable, Last Tango was not at all bad. It was the quality of the acting that made the show work. While I couldn't help wondering what Derek Jacobi (Alan) and Anne Reid (Celia) might have done with a more challenging script, I couldn't fault their commitment. It's not that often a pair of 70-year-olds get to take centre stage in a rom-com and they did so with charm, coyness and experience; they even managed to make the ridiculous car chase feel slightly less ridiculous. God knows how.

The rest of the cast weren't so shabby either. Both Nicola Walker (Gillian) and Sarah Lancashire have expressions that can convey a world of pain without saying a word - a distinct advantage here - helpfully glossing over most of the clunkier elements of the plot. So against my expectations, I found myself making a note to watch next week's episode. Even though I have still got a fair idea of exactly what's going to happen.

I know Fresh Meat didn't start out as a rom-com and writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong still might be horrified to find their creation described as such. But that is undoubtedly what it has become, albeit in a very street-smart, sharp and funny way. It's amazing how many rom-coms forget to add the com part.

But if it was the humour that initially caught people's attention, it has long since become just one element in a show of increasing depth. Much as I admired the performances of Derek Jacobi, Anne Reid et al in Last Tango, I wasn't greatly involved with their characters and I wasn't at all put out when their hour was up. With Fresh Meat, I am. I feel a sense of loss when the closing credits roll. I've come to care about these people. I love the way they move from the deadly serious to the totally absurd mid-sentence, in the way only university students can. I love the awkwardness of their relationships. Or rather, entanglements.

As JP - his Stowe chums call him JPaedo, but be careful what you tweet - Jack Whitehall is in danger of making posh boys sympathetic and Josie's attempts to make the housemates believe she hasn't been kicked off the course were becoming more and more poignant. Only Vod could imagine Josie must have acquired a smack habit. Don't ever change, Vod. Nor you, Kingsley and Oregon. And as for Howard ...? How could Sabine have gone back to Holland?

Even the minor characters - the geology lecturer excepted - are well drawn. Professor Shales (Tony Gardner), Oregon's ex - she has now got off with his son - is a case in point. As John, the slightly seedy man having a midlife crisis in Last Tango, Gardner was fairly one-dimensional: as Shales, the slightly seedy man having a midlife crisis, his desperate sadness is almost touching. Almost. When rom-coms are this good, what's not to love?

New dramedy that follows widower Alan Buttershaw (Derek Jacobi), who - after spending 60 years wondering just what happened to one-time teenage crush Celia Dawson (Anne Reid) - suddenly bumps into her on Facebook. Soon they're flirting clumsily like inept teens. Aside from the septuagenarian Sense and Sensibility, plenty is going on in the love lives of respective daughters Gillian and Caroline, suggesting dark secrets yet to be uncovered beyond this engaging opener.

There hasn't been a good series about "second time around lovers" since Nineties sitcom As Time Goes By. This charming comedy-drama ends that drought in style. Celia Dawson (Anne Reid) and Alan Buttershaw (Derek Jacobi) are both widowed and haven't seen each other for 60 years. When the old flames are reunited via Facebook, their feelings are reignited - and they discover that it was a twist of fate that separated them in the first place.

This is superior fare, based on writer Sally Wainwright's (Scott & Bailey) own mother's internet romance. It's also directed by Doctor Who alumnus Euros Lyn and made by estimable production company Red. However, it's the performances that truly elevate it - not just from classy leads Reid and Jacobi who are amusingly irascible and sweetly bumbling, respectively, but a strong supporting cast which includes Sarah Lancashire, Nicola Walker, Tony Gardner and Ronni Ancona. All come into their own over the six episodes, as the lovers' families are thrown together amid sub-plots involving bisexuality, alchoholism and a murder mystery. Watch out for a neat surprise in the final scene of this opener.