Rob Brydon plays the critic and impresario Kenneth Tynan in this funny and touching drama set in 1960s London. As well as being one of the most influential theatre critics of the time, Tynan worked with Laurence Olivier at the newly founded National Theatre and waged a battle against censorship that famously led to him being the first person to say f*** on television. We spoke to the writer and director Chris Durlacher about the drama.
Interview: Chris Durlacher
BBC Four: What initially drew you to Tynan as a subject?
Chris Durlacher: I'd previously made a film about George Orwell and wanted to make a film about another English man of letters. It was the Tynan diaries that drew me to him - I'd read them and thought they were hilarious.
BBC Four: Did you see similarities between Orwell and Tynan?
CD: Yes, they were both English intellectuals, but they were also heroic in the same way, in that they both lived by a code. Their codes were pretty different, but they both clung to their beliefs no matter what, and paid a pretty high penalty for that. Kenneth Tynan's absolute honesty that he clings to in every circumstance, that is what interested me.
BBC Four: And what do you think was Tynan's most enduring legacy, was it his criticism or the battle against censorship?
CD: I think they're part and parcel of the same thing. The thing about criticism is that it's quite an ephemeral thing; a review of a theatrical performance which you can't see any more. So I've read all his theatre criticism, but because I haven't seen the performances of the plays he's writing about, it's not entirely satisfying. However, he constantly argued that theatre should be relevant, that it mattered, that it could reflect society and it can't do that if it's being censored. That was one of his constant campaigns from his very earliest writing about theatre.
BBC Four: In the programme you use Tynan's own words and it's as if what made his criticism so great, his observation and his great way with words does come through…
CD: That's another thing that attracted me to him - you've just got great words to play with. I pored over every single sentence he ever wrote and stitched the whole thing together from a number of different sources.
BBC Four: Was it immediately obvious what years you were going to concentrate on?
CD: Not at all. The diaries begin in 1970 and they're pretty dark. By the 70s Kenneth Tynan is past his peak really and it's the story of the decline of his marriage, the decline of his career, his ill-health, his constant financial worries and that would make quite a dark film if that's all it was. In the 1960s what we had was Tynan on the up as well, so you've got a more dramatic trajectory. Essentially the film is the story of how Kenneth Tynan got to the place where he sat down and wrote the diaries. You could almost imagine that the next scene is Ken Tynan at his typewriter saying that he's going to write the diaries. The diaries are almost more memoirs than diaries. We used a lot of scenes from the diaries because a lot of the time the diaries are "This reminds me of a time back in 1966 when…"
BBC Four: The diaries are very dark and your Tynan, although you don't shy away from the dark material, is a very sympathetic character. How would you respond to someone saying that he's too sympathetic on screen?
CD: He's not an entirely sympathetic character - he hurts people in this film. We've certainly not tried to make him palatable in any way. He hurts his wife, he offends his colleagues and he causes any amount of trouble for himself in our film, but I hope, not so much that you sympathise, but that you understand some of the motivations that are driving him to do that.
BBC Four: Many of the scenes begin with him dressing in front of a mirror and it seems to suggest vanity and self-scrutiny. Was this an important motif for you?
CD: Kenneth Tynan's middle name was in fact Peacock - because that was his father's name - and he was definitely a peacock. A constant theme in other people's descriptions of him was his flashy dress sense. In all of the images I've seen of him, he's wearing spectacular clothing. It was a time of spectacular clothing, but Kenneth Tynan was always ahead of the game.
BBC Four: There are two very funny appearances by Tynan on television in the drama, one of which was the infamous occasion in which he said f*** on air, the second one is very revealing about his sado-masochism, did that actually happen?
CD: No, the second one didn't, but that sort of thing did actually happen. To Kathleen's amazement and displeasure, Tynan maintained a public dialogue about his sexuality. So I wanted a scene that somehow encapsulated that. Those very words were taken from his diaries, which I should add he wanted to be published. It was a kind of public statement in written form that I've converted into a public statement in televisual form.
BBC Four: Was Rob Brydon an obvious choice for Tynan?
CD: As soon as I met Rob I felt he would be ideal for the part, same with Julian Sands. Julian's got this incredible controlled energy; you're aware, as Tynan wrote of Olivier, that "at any moment the lion's paw may lash out". Catherine also gives a very intense performance as Kathleen - she's a very strong woman and sticks with Tynan, not because she's a doormat, but because she's strong enough to withstand all the shit that's going on. Rob's really been able to evoke the considered intellectual that Ken Tynan was, but it's also a very poignant performance. The extent that Tynan is sympathetic, an awful lot of that is down to Rob Brydon's performance.
