TV
swim: A LIFE BACKWARDS BBC2, Sun 23 Sep, 9pm 0000
While the rash of biographies about so-called celebrities is one of the real downsides of the literary market these days, it may well be pipped into second place by the glut of books about tormented people we have never heard of who admittedly have some awful things happen to them in their tragic lives.
But back in 2004, Alexander Masters published one such tale of Stuart Shorter, a homeless alcoholic with muscular dystrophy and uber-violent tendencies, whose life had been shaped by some truly appalling events from his childhood which he had buried too far inside of himself. The book was a sensation and this drama is a fitting testament to the memory of a troubled soul who just about got through life via his manic moments and dry sense of wit but whose ultimate fate was all-too inevitable.
Author and charity worker Masters is played with subtle effect by Benedict Cumberbatch (Hawking, To the Ends of the Earth) while Tom
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The Flight of the
Hardy (The Virgin Queen, Layer Cake) grasps the nettle of Shorter‘s Conchords : temperament with absolute relish, their dual personalities feeding off each ' 000 other as they form an unlikely partnership. Masters‘ initial disdain for his charity work steadily alters into a deep compassion and understanding of Shorter's circumstance in the face of an ingrained snobbery of his middle- class environs, and the emotion that fills the screen in the closing images can’t fail to seep through into the viewer‘s veins. (Brian Donaldson) . .. .. .' ' ' : Auschwitz: The Great Escape Revealed " .- ’ 1' : :v. a ' ~ . <5). ,..... I ,, ., . .. . la; :; " 2 z .' E~ .' :'. ' 'The Sarah Jane . 2 ' Adventures "' ‘5 ~
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