RICHARD’S BLOG

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I became a playwright in 1996, having been an avid theatregoer throughout my life (averaging around 120 plays a year – watching, not writing!) I semi-retired from my day job shortly thereafter and for the next 25 years I worked only part-time, allowing me time to write. I ventured briefly into the world of television and wrote a couple of screenplays, although this pretty much came to nothing, except for TAPS making a short film of one of my scripts starring (a virtually unknown) Benedict Cumberbatch and Georgia Mackenzie, which was cool, and sufficient to get me BAFTA membership. Since the pandemic, theatre in the UK has never really found its way back to what it used to be, and so my attention has drifted more towards film. I am now fully retired from my day job and whilst I still visit the theatre two or three times a month, I now watch upwards of 500 films a year (crazy, but true!) Since I watch so many films and can write, I decided to create a blog – it seemed a very 21st-Century thing to do.
REVIEW:  Darling     ★★★★☆

REVIEW:  Darling     ★★★★☆

Darling is an incisive and biting social satire of London’s jet set culture in the swinging sixties – so says the BFI’s information sheet, and who am I to argue with that. Made in 1965, directed by John Schlesinger from a script by novelist Frederick Raphael, a new 4K restoration was re-released in the UK last Friday to commemorate its sixtieth anniversary. As I happened to be in London for a few days, I wandered down to the South Bank on Friday morning and caught its first screening at the BFI. And what a treat it was!

The film tells the story of Diana Scott, a young and beautiful model, played by Julie Christie in her first starring role. Easily bored and in a loveless marriage, we watch as she drifts in and out of a series of affairs in search of some kind of fulfilment. Her first extra-marital fling is with Robert Gold (Dirk Bogarde), a literary interviewer/director for BBC television. He leaves his wife and children, and they set up home together; but her excitement is short lived and pretty soon she has slipped off to Paris with Miles Brand (Laurence Harvey) a rather sleazy advertising executive. On discovering her infidelity, Robert kicks her out, but rather ironically, Miles casts her as the Happiness Girl in an advertising campaign for a chocolate company.

The film is clever and funny: it carries you along on Diana’s journey, always loving the moment in public, always unfulfilled in private. This is a cynical take on the swinging sixties, highlighting the emptiness of the permissive society and the shallowness of the it-crowd. In many ways it is reminiscent of Fellini’s 1960 masterpiece, La Dolce Vita, but perhaps falls just a little short.

Christie, Bogarde and Harvey were all excellent in their roles, with Christie picking up an Oscar and a string of other awards for her performance. Frederick Raphael also won an Oscar for the screenplay, and he and Schlesinger picked up a raft of other awards and nominations.

Darling is something of a forgotten classic and if this new version is showing anywhere near you, I heartily recommend it!

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