Radio Times review

The 36th best TV show of 2011 according to the Radio Times.

A superb example of BBC4's curious but rewarding obsession with mid-ranking, mid-20th Century entertainers, and the misery success brought them. Hattie Jacques, trapped by sexist typecasting and her supportive but inert husband John Le Mesurier, welcomes a sexy young lodger (Aidan Turner) into the family home and proceeds to have an affair with him. As Jacques, Ruth Jones captured the desperation of someone who knows, deep down, that she's destroying herself, but can't quite stop. Robert Bathurst was just as fine as Le Mesurier, who could see what Jacques was doing but couldn't quite rouse himself to prevent her. A sensational-on-paper story became sober, classy and sad.

The Beeb's drama department has carved out a neat niche with its biopics of beloved British comedy stars: from Kenneth Williams and Tony Hancock to Frankie Howerd and Morecambe and Wise. This latest film, first shown on BBC Four in January, is a worthy addition. Gavin & Stacey's Ruth Jones stars in an acclaimed dramatisation of Carry On star Hattie Jacques's life. Though she played an austere matron on screen, Jacques's private life was actually rather racy. The story focuses on the early 1960s love triangle between Jacques, her chauffeur (Aidan Turner) and her husband, Dad's Army star John Le Mesurier (a heartbreaking turn from Cold Feet's Robert Bathurst) - whom she continued to love, even when she moved her toyboy into their bed. It's a bittersweet story, superbly acted, and followed by a repeat of Jacques's 1963 appearance on This Is Your Life.

If you missed this superior biographical drama when it was shown earlier this year, here's a good chance to catch up. Ruth Jones is mesmerising as Hattie Jacques, a beloved comic actor who became part of a domestic ménage with adored husband John Le Mesurier and sexy younger man John Schofield. The story is irresistible: Schofield (Being Human's Aidan Turner) meets Hattie after a charity event and the two are quickly in the grip of an electrifying sexual passion. Bizarrely, even incredibly, Schofield moves into the Le Mesurier home and the marital bed, with John banished to the attic. Yet Stephen Russell's script judges no one as it reveals a marriage that, in its own strange way, was rock-solid, with Hattie and John sharing a lifelong devotion, even after their divorce. Ever the gentleman, John takes the blame for the break-up. Hattie is a touching drama that, for once, doesn't perform a hatchet job on an adored British comedy figure.

Ooh, matron! The real-life bed-hopping antics of Hattie Jacques were a far cry from the sex-starved battle-axe she played in the Carry On films.

Gavin and Stacey's Ruth Jones pours herself into a series of shiny sixties frocks and some sexy corsets for this handsome one-off biopic. Meanwhile Aidan Turner - of Being Human and Desperate Romantics fame - is transformed after a run-in with the hair-straighteners into her toyboy, bit of rough John Schofield.

When Hattie divorced Dad's Army star
John Le Mesurier (played by a very well-cast Robert Bathurst) in 1965, it was reported that he had cheated on her.

In fact, the mild-mannered Le Mesurier was the innocent party while Hattie had been living the best of both worlds - moving her husband upstairs to the attic, and her lover - a cockney car-salesman - into her marital bed.

It doesn't exactly show Hattie in a favourable light. How could she do it to the lovely Le Mesurier? As she explains to a girlfriend while Schofield hunks about the garden, bare-chested in shorts: "Ooh, look. Him! With me!"

Ruth Jones is mesmerising as Hattie Jacques, the beloved comic actor and Carry On star, who became part of a domestic ménage with her adored husband John Le Mesurier and a sexy younger man, John Schofield. The story is irresistible: Schofield (played by Being Human's Aidan Turner) is a second-hand car dealer who meets Hattie after a charity event while she's filming Carry On Cabbie and the two are quickly in the grip of an electrifying sexual passion. Bizarrely, even incredibly, Schofield moves into the Le Mesurier family home and the marital bed, with John Le Mesurier banished to the lodger's room in the attic. Yet Stephen Russell's script judges no one as it reveals a marriage that, in its own strange way, was rock-solid: Hattie and Le Mesurier shared a lifelong devotion after their divorce. Ever the gentleman, Le Mesurier (Robert Bathurst) takes the blame for the break-up. Hattie is a touching drama that, for once, doesn't perform a hatchet job on an adored British comedy figure.

The Carry On star and much-loved comic actress Hattie Jacques might have often been cast as a stern matron, a battle-axe even, but Stephen Russell's bittersweet drama reveals a lustier, naughtier side to her character. There are elements of artistic licence in his storyline and Hattie might have benefited if it had offered a broader spectrum to Jacques's life, but this tightly focused film is driven by an exquisite performance by Ruth Jones.

The story details the clandestine affair Hattie embarked on during her marriage to the actor John Le Mesurier (Robert Bathurst) at a time when she was at the height of her popularity. Jacques might have hated being overweight (she longed to be a ballerina), but her size merely seems to fuel her desire as she is readily seduced by the young John Schofield (Aidan Turner) - a handsome, rough and ready used car dealer. Desperate to avoid any kind of scandal ("You British never forgive people who like a lot of sex," says her lover), Jacques, not wanting to lose either man, tries to keep the affair a secret. When Schofield becomes a lodger in the Le Mesurier household, she's forced to divide her time between her tolerant husband - who is portrayed, perhaps a little unkindly, as being lovably hapless and never far from a drink - two children and demanding lover.

It's a beautifully observed production with a sharp script, but the highlight is an astute characterisation of a fragile, highly sexed Jacques.

Ever wondered what Carry On actress Hattie Jacques might've looked like in the throes of sexual ecstasy? Then look no further than BBC 4's latest "tears behind the laughter" biopic, hattie, which takes a mildly scurrilous peek at a peculiar episode from her once private life.

Though hidden from the public during their lifetime, it's now common knowledge that Jacques and her husband, beloved British comedy actor John Le Mesurier, were embroiled in a bizarre love triangle involving cockney chauffeur John Schofield.

The film shows how Jacques was seduced by this ravishing charmer, who then moved into her marital bed while Le Mesurier - in an almost farcical display of gentlemanly English stoicism - was banished to a guest room.

Jacques obviously adored her husband, so what was she thinking? Unfortunately, writer Stephen Russell doesn't provide many answers beyond suggesting that, insecure about her weight, she was flattered by the attentions of a younger man. It all feels rather glib.

Though Schofield (Being Human's Aidan Turner) is depicted as having genuinely fallen in lust with the vivacious actress, Russell also suggests that the material trappings of her celebrity lifestyle proved just as enticing.

As for Le Mesurier, he's portrayed as an exasperating cuckold incapable of functioning without his wife's support. The public humiliation he avoided in life is now exposed for all to see: hardly the point of his sacrifice.

Ruth Jones is fine in the lead role, although she doesn't have much to work with. Maybe Jacques really wasn't that complex in real life, but there must have been more to her than these superficial character traits. She's depicted as warm and charitable, with a girlish sense of fun, but an immature recklessness when it came to her own family. And that's it.

Robert Bathurst steals the acting honours as Le Mesurier, suggesting acute sensitivity beneath those famously vague mannerisms. But his character never really comes alive either.

Although not bad as such, Hattie suffers from rather bland execution. It recounts a strange, voyeuristically interesting story, but rarely engages on an emotional level.