Natalie Walter

Still Up review

After the success of Trying and Ted Lasso, Apple TV+'s new British comedy Still Up feels like an updated version of Sleepless In Seattle, but written during lockdown.

Private Lives with Patricia Hodge and Nigel Havers to open in the West End

Noël Coward's Private Lives will open at the newly refurbished Ambassadors Theatre late next month.

As Alec Guinness did in the 1949 film version of Kind Hearts and Coronets, Alistair McGowan took all the parts of all the Gascoynes (D'Ascoynes in the film) and - with the possible exception of his Lady Edith - did so nimbly and amusingly. Natalie Walter as the ruthless Unity (the Dennis Price part) impressed. It was the script that limped, always a minute behind listener expectation.

David Spicer's Kind Hearts and Coronets - Like Father, Like Daughter, a sequel to the 1949 Ealing comedy in which Alec Guinness played all eight members of the D'Ascoyne family murdered by Louis Mazzini so he can become the 10th Earl of Chalfont, achieved something quite different. This delightful comedy kept the lightness of touch of the original while imbuing the drama with ironic references for a contemporary audience. Spicer's ingenuity in matching the method of despatch to the victim added to the fun.

Natalie Walter was spectacular - droll, manipulative yet likeable, as Unity the illegitimate daughter of Louis, hanged for his litany of dynastic murders. Born with the same sense of entitlement, Unity set about murdering her father's wife, Lady Edith Gascoyne and five of her six children, the entire family played in an astonishing vaudevillian style by Alistair McGowan, the personality and fate of each somehow embodied in phonics and inflections.

For me, Kind Hearts and Coronets is my favourite of the Ealing Comedies. As a result I was somewhat worried by the fact that someone would want to make a sequel to it.

In this story, following the death of Duke Louis (Dennis Price in the film), his wife Lady Edith takes the title, refusing to recognise the claim issued by Louis's biological daughter Unity Holland (played by Natalie Walter). Unity decides to get the title the old fashioned way - murdering all the other claimants...

The story sees Unity beginning her murder spree in 1939, through World War Two and after it. She then starts to kill the seven claimants: Lady Edith Gascoyne, fighter pilot Louis Gascoyne, spiv Henry Gascoyne, far-right twins Adalbert and Ughtred Gascoyne, socialist Marmaduke Gascoyne, and rubbish poet Ronald Gascoyne, all of whom are played by Alistair McGowan.

McGowan obviously has it easier than Guinness did. For starters, two of the characters are twins so they can have the same sort of voice. Also, Marmaduke suffers from a stutter so that gives another silly voice to play with.

However, it seems to have pulled it off. I don't think that this story is in any way a sort of sacrilege against the original; after all, the film changes bits from the original novel (in the novel the murderer was half-Jewish, not half-Italian).

An entertaining tale, then, with a nice story and set up...

Radio Times review

Some sequels or re-imaginings should never have been allowed - Speed 2 and the Gus Van Sant Psycho remake spring to mind. I am happy to report that this follow-on from where Kind Hearts and Coronets ended, with the infamous mass murderer's bastard baby daughter picking up where her father left off, is an absolute delight.

It does not attempt to replicate the classic comedy's unique style, merely borrows the idea of killing off all the members of the ghastly Gascoyne family who stand in the way of a mighty inheritance. Natalie Walter gets the easy role as the illegitimate child with a murderous chip on her shoulder.

But who dares to play the whole of the Gascoyne family, the roles that Alec Guinness so famously made his own, eight times over, in the film? A man of many voices - Alistair McGowan. And he is, quite simply, brilliant.

You don't have to have seen the classic 1949 film of Kind Hearts and Coronets (with Dennis Price as the villainous Louis Mazzini murdering his way through all the D'Ascoynes, each one played by Alec Guinness, for the family fortune) to enjoy David Spicer's radio sequel.

Time has rolled on, we're in the 20th century. Unity Holland (Natalie Walter) is up against many other claimants to the earldom, each played by clever Alistair McGowan and all of them ruthless.