tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post4436150892964690203..comments2023-11-22T09:11:01.567+00:00Comments on George Szirtes: UnitedGeorge Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-59122241451000404692011-04-25T20:09:17.554+01:002011-04-25T20:09:17.554+01:00I think perhaps the main problem with the drama is...<i>I think perhaps the main problem with the drama is a problem it could not solve, a problem inherent in the story it was exploring : what happened with the Manchester United team WAS tragic, almost unbearably so. It wasn't a complicated story.</i><br /><br />That's dead right. I have watched it through now and, very strangely, your comment arrived right at the moment I had finished watching it.<br /><br />Your comment is very good. The hint was that Hardaker was to blame for being a petty vengeful bureaucrat. That might have been the case.<br /><br />But there is a deeper point here bound up in the bit I've quoted from you above. I'll explore it a little further in a postscript blog.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-66139983098280636552011-04-25T19:48:17.104+01:002011-04-25T19:48:17.104+01:00Umm. I think it's quite well known that Mark J...Umm. I think it's quite well known that Mark Jones smoked a pipe. Whether he smoked a pipe in the particular way shown last night is, as you say, beside the point.<br /><br /> Bobby C. was a bit too gormless, agreed. Matt Busby wasn't fleshed out enough, though his son's complaint about him being shown in coat and bowler rather than in a tracksuit is, like the pipe query, irrelevant. I felt David Tennant as Jimmy Murphy was good. (The Welsh accent sounded convincing to my admittedly non-Welsh ears.)<br /><br /> I think perhaps the main problem with the drama is a problem it could not solve, a problem inherent in the story it was exploring : what happened with the Manchester United team WAS tragic, almost unbearably so. It wasn't a complicated story. Some young, vibrant and very talented men were struck down at the height of their youth and vibrancy and talent. There can be no ambivalence about a story like that. People rallied round, sent in donations in the form of postal orders, wept in the streets. No ambivalence there, either. Jimmy Murphy was a decent man doing his best in terrible circumstances, Matt Busby, ditto.<br /><br /> Now if I was exploring that story, I would draw out the way that Busby felt GUILTY about what had happened. This guilt apparently hung over him until the European Cup triumph 10 years later when he said that he finally, finally felt "cleansed."panthernoreply@blogger.com