Public Eye: Unlucky for Some (Tony Wright Season)
I am absolutely certain that I have seen Unlucky for Some before because I have definitely watched Public Eye all the way through at least a couple of times, but unfortunately I obviously didn’t watch it attentively enough and had no recollection of it. That is a pity, because this, the last ever episode of Public Eye, is an absolute delight.
It is largely set in a family-run hotel, where the mother doesn’t like her daughter-in-law, her son has married her quite abruptly without telling his mother, knows nothing about her past, and so approaches Frank Marker to fill in the blanks. She believes that the daughter in law is deceiving her son, because another man is staying in the hotel and she believes there is an intimacy between him and the daughter in law.
Perhaps I haven’t mentioned it here before, but I have a bit of a thing about hotels. I think they are absolutely fascinating and really wish that if my life had been different I had gone into hotel management. I love the way they are full of a continually-changing collection of travellers so are ultimately liminal. Yet at the same time there is an artifice about hotels, they are rather like a theatre, with all sorts of messy things and drama going on behind the scenes. It isn’t the case with this play, but they are also perfect for theatre because you can make them a closed environment and there’s always potential for drama.
That said, the investigation in this episode is a very straightforward piece of detective work, with Marker going to stay in the hotel and following leads to find out what is actually going on with the daughter in law. I really like that the series ended on this note: it really does show Marker at his best. There is also a hint of his down-at-heel persona: he can’t get the staff or guests in the hotel to address him by his right name, and the simple fact is the radiators in the hotel bang like nobody’s business, they can’t get staff and are all at each other’s necks.
I also wouldn’t quite say the entire cast spend the entire episode hammered out of their minds, but there is also quite a lot of heavy drinking going on in this episode. The daughter in law decides one day she is going to settle in the bar and simply doesn’t move. There is another marvellous scene where Marker goes to see a local artist at the shop she runs. She is out when he arrives and is plainly a raging alcoholic because she has had to go out and get some gin to get over the night before. I love that she takes Marker into the back room of the shop, which is half kitchen and half studio, and gives him a gin as well as having one herself, first thing in the morning. Even Marker downs more gin rather than the beer he normally does, largely as part of his role as a guest in the hotel, chatting to the family in the bar.
If you were to say that there is a slight, but absolutely serious and not humorous at all, hint of Fawlty Towers about this, I think you would be right.
I’m not going to give away his role because I don’t want to spoil this episode for anyone who hasn’t watched it, but Tony Wright’s role is essentially small but absolutely crucial to the plot. Of course, around fifteen years later than the last two of his roles I wrote about, he looks older and has put some weight on. However he is straight into the role and I can’t criticise him.
If you want a criticism of the play, it would have to be that once Marker finds out one essential fact about the daughter in law about half way through, it’s rather obvious what is going on. So I would recommend just enjoying the cast of alcoholics, pushy mothers and criminals in this one.
I wouldn’t go to the stake for this criticism, because of course it’s possible I haven’t understood it properly, but I’m not entirely sure why the daughter in law felt obliged to marry her husband. Widowed, and presumably footloose and fancy free, she could have just got a job. I feel that what she is hiding is complicated enough on its own that it would be better not being complicated by marriage, but as I say, I may well have missed the point here.
All together an excellent final episode of Public Eye which has touched on one of my funny little interests and provides a crucial small role for Tony Wright.
This blog is mirrored at
culttvblog.tumblr.com/archive (from September 2023) and culttvblog.substack.com (from January 2023 and where you can subscribe by email)
Archives from 2013 to September 2023 may be found at culttvblog.blogspot.com and there is an incomplete index to the tags used on the Tumblr version at https://www.tumblr.com/culttvblog/729194158177370112/this-blog
There is an index to posts on the Substack version here: https://culttvblog.substack.com/p/index-of-posts?r=1q6qo6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
About this blog: https://culttvblog.substack.com/about
Vote Green for real hope and real change! greenparty.org.uk