Hate watch: Lewis

BEN THOMAS on that time that Laurence Fox tried acting human emotions.

Inspector Morse, starring John Thaw and Kevin Whately, appeared on our screens from 1987 to 2000 on ITV (initially produced by Central Television and then Carlton). There were a total of thirty-three episodes made over the course of twelve separate broadcasting runs and… I’m not actually writing about Inspector Morse today. Sorry!

That was the plan. Finlay, the Scottish work-experience placement who takes the empty bottles out at Lion & Unicorn’s offices, suggested it as a topic and I was soon deep in thought about which episode to put under the Hate Watch microscope. I considered ‘Cherubim & Seraphim’ (Morse vs Rave Culture, 1992) or ‘The Settling of the Sun’ (solution based around ‘they all look alike to me’, 1988) before I settled on my least favourite. I won’t reveal my hand yet as I may well come back to Morse. But thinking about him had already set my mind on a different path.

Lewis, starring Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox, appeared on our screens between 2006 and 2015 on ITV (produced by ITV Studios). There were a total of thirty-three episodes made over the course of nine separate broadcasting runs.

I’m not being nasty about Kevin Whately, but I don’t think anyone would’ve considered him as the lead of a primetime detective show if he hadn’t appeared in Inspector Morse. This is in no way a knock on Mr Whately. He’s an excellent character actor, gifted with presence and uncanny warmth; what I’d call ‘Michael Palin energy’. But he’s not John Thaw, an actor who could project the aura of a man who had not only got out of the wrong side of the bed, but had then fallen out of his bedroom window before being run over by a passing moped. The spin-off tried to add more anguish to Lewis by killing his beloved wife Val off-screen. It didn’t really stick.

And then we have Laurence Fox as Sergeant James Hathaway.

Yes. Well.

For the purposes of this article I’m going to be looking at the ex-Mr Billie Piper on his qualities as an actor. He may not thank me for that. Something I discovered while preparing to write: Hathaway’s sexuality was deliberately left ambiguous, with Fox himself pushing back against attempts by the writers to define it more explicitly. How very ‘Leftist’ of him. This ambiguity (spoilers) plays into the episode I’ll be discussing.

Other actors of note in Lewis include Clare Holman, playing police pathologist Dr. Laura Hobson. She’s the only other character apart from Lewis to carry over from the parent series. I think she’s marvellous, possibly the best thing in the programme. Playful and funny, but utterly professional and no-nonsense. Her rapport with Lewis and Hathaway elevates every scene she shares with them, especially those with Lewis as the flirtation between the two develops. If there’d been a spin-off called Hobson’s Choice I’d have watched it every week.

And then there’s Rebecca Front as Chief Superintendent Jean Innocent, Lewis and Hathaway’s boss. You’re having a good day when you have Rebecca Front as a regular on the call sheet. Her character has more nuance than you’d expect. She’s ambitious, corporate and optics-driven, but ultimately loyal to her team and A Good Copper. It’s a shame she left before the series ended. She’s replaced in season 9 by Chief Superintendent Joe Moody (played by Steve Toussaint) about whom I can remember nothing.

Sorry Steve.

I seem to have wittered on for 600 words without getting to the point and I can hear the Lion & Unicorn editor whimpering into their pillow so I shall finally dip my toe into the topic at hand.

For this Hate Watch, I nominate the Lewis episode ‘Life Born of Fire’ (series 2, episode 3, 2008). Written by Tom MacRae and directed by Richard Spence. As per IMDb: ‘The suicide of Hathaway’s old friend tests his relationship with Lewis as he must come to terms with ambivalence about his own sexual past.’

I’m familiar with Tom MacRae. He wrote the Doctor Who two-parter ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ and ‘The Age of Steel’, starring David Tennant, Fox’s ex Billie Piper and Noel Clarke. (This may or may not still be up on iPlayer when this article is published.) It’s among the weaker stories of Tennant’s first series, although some of the blame must go to the direction and the guest cast (I’m looking at you, Roger Lloyd Pack).

Five years later he’d write another Doctor Who story called ‘The Girl Who Waited’, starring Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, and that’s brilliant and devastating. More recently he wrote the book and lyrics to the stage musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. The film adaptation, which he also wrote, was nominated for a BAFTA. (I’ve never heard of the director, Richard Spence. They may have made him up.)

I can see what MacRae is trying to do. When I told Finlay I was writing about this episode, he asked ‘Is that the one about AA for gays?’ I told him to carry on polishing my shoes, but he’s not wrong. At the core of the story is the topic of conversion therapy. Somehow it’s got tangled in a bizarre revenge tragedy with a hint of The Crying Game.

If this were an episode of Inspector Morse, then you’d at least have John Thaw anchoring things with grumpy outbursts, sarcasm and delicious melancholy. This is Lewis, however. And Inspector Lewis isn’t even the protagonist this week. Someone’s decided to make Hathaway the lead.

This was a mistake.

There are things that Laurence Fox is good at. As an actor, I mean. As Hathaway, he gives shifty and sardonic with aplomb. He plays off Kevin Whately very well and, as I’ve said, the scenes with them both and Clare Holman are a joy. But what this episode shows, in spades, is that you can’t trust him to deliver a convincing emotional performance. It’s like his face is trying to do a hill climb in third gear. And given the emotional focus, he’s as exposed as a nudist in a wind tunnel.

There is other noticeable acting talent in this story. Rachael Stirling is given a near-impossible brief in playing Zoë Kenneth (I can’t explain the character in less than two paragraphs so don’t ask), and yet comes out of it with a surprising amount of dignity intact. Acting royalty, indeed. And it’s always nice to see Ian McNeice turn up in something. He can communicate more with a tremble of his jowls than most actors manage during an entire soliloquy. It’s a shame his character gets disposed of so early with a burning poker.

On the other hand there’s Bruce Mackinnon as Conan Jones. It’s the oddest attempt at playing a camp gay man I think I’ve seen on television. Over-the-top and yet apologetic. Like he’s acting at gunpoint. Kate Miles in the role of Nova Rose, I can forgive. Her character, as written, is the most mannered fag hag in modern British drama. Her first scene meeting Lewis is so cringy I nearly suffered an anal prolapse. And I don’t know what’s going on with Matthew Marsh as Henry McEwan. He made a career playing hardmen like this one and the part offers interesting subtleties, but it’s like he’s forgotten his craft. His ‘drunk acting’ warrants a written apology.

Meanwhile, Lewis has a subplot about him getting an allotment. It’s not even really a subplot; it’s completely unconnected to the real story. And it’s sublime. This is Kevin Whately being given material he can make sing and he’s teamed with veteran actor David Ryall, who I’d challenge even Laurence Fox to share a bad scene with. It’s borderline philosophical. They should’ve done ninety minutes of those two having a chat instead.

Unfortunately, we’re dragged back to the actual story and it climaxes with a drugged Hathaway trapped in a burning building, a metaphor so on the nose I suspect deliberate parody. Hathaway survives, Zoë burns, and it ends with Lewis giving Hathaway a Yorkie Bar.

And SCENE!

I rewatched ‘Life Born of Fire’ last night. I remembered it being entertainingly bad. I recalled Fox’s performance being operatically dreadful. But in truth, the story is merely bad, and Fox is just wooden. I suspect MacRae wrote a Lewis episode about a cause he cared about deeply, and somewhere along the way it got diluted by the constraints of the format. It’s not silly enough to be entertaining. It’s not serious enough to be profound. The allotment scenes leave a very pleasant aftertaste.

Hathaway would become the senior investigating officer in seasons 8 and 9 after Lewis retired at the end of season 7. Lewis would soon be coaxed back out of retirement of course, but Hathaway was now the Inspector. And that worked tolerably well.

They learned their lessons, though. They never again let Fox carry this kind of emotional weight; nothing that required him to force his facial muscles into expressions recognisable as human feelings.

RIP Laurence Fox’s Acting Career: 2001—2022

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