ex7617 'Jeremy Thorpe' is a familiar name, from the 70s I guess, but I had no idea why ________________ this casually planned 'murder plot in the name of...I'm not sure what", obediently followed by a ring of compliant dupes makes me ever more scared of the current US-WH situation, say no more!!

philipryburn I normally like some good English Witt and banter, but couldn't even make it through one episode of this rubbish.

Indieshack Just to add what others have said. Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks showed that Grant could act, this nails it. Very very good performance. Production values are great.

davideo-2 SPOILER: STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday MorningThroughout the 1960s and 1970s, Jeremy Thorpe (Hugh Grant) was a high-flying Liberal politician, with ambitions of becoming prime minister. But he hid a secret homosexual leaning, at a time when being gay was illegal, which were inflamed when he crossed paths with stable boy Norman Scott (Ben Whishaw.) inviting him back to stay at his mother's house in the country. But Thorpe quickly tossed him to one side, leaving Ben with an elusive hope of gaining a National Insurance card. When he threatened to go public about their affair, it all led to a dramatic turn of events, in which a plot was allegedly orchestrated to murder Scott, leading to Thorpe going on trial with several other men.The British obsession with a 'good scandal' still persists to this day, even at a time where gossip and speculation tends to spread on the internet before it's hit any of the broadsheets, but A Very English Scandal takes us back to a time when the law and social attitudes were very different, a time when merely being gay was a hideous taboo that had to be covered up at all costs, in order to save face and careers. It seems pretty remarkable now that such a time could have existed, but Stephen Frears brings it to life, in a well made, pleasingly dramatic but flawed production, that just falls short of being the sum of its parts.Given Thorpe's acquittal of the crime he was accused of, Frears has taken some truly creative licence with a screenplay that assumes he was in fact guilty as sin, and his acquittal was presumably the result of establishment interference. Coming a few years after his death, and therefore, after his ability to press defamation charges in court, it all feels a little cheeky, and knocking a man when he can't fight back. Whether it would have been more dramatic had the film just stuck to events as they played out is unclear, but this wild exaggeration does hinder its credibility a bit.With just three hour long episodes to cover everything in, the series just doesn't give itself enough time to really develop the characters or the story enough to really get under the skin of the whole thing as much as it could have, despite inspired and effective casting with Grant and Whishaw in the lead roles. But it's still fairly dramatic, enthralling and suspenseful, the kind of thing TV seems to be doing better than cinema these days. ***