Turn of the screw


The follow up part to the monologue 'A Real Summer', 'Capturing Mary' is one of the finest pieces of television I have ever seen in my 29 years.

It is refreshing to see an upper class, or upper middle class, perspective on the 1950s and 1960s. 'Capturing Mary' contrasts, and yet also shows a link between, the 2 decades in such an artful way.

Although the setting is a grand party, many of the party scenes take place in the relatively austere surroundings of the kitchen or the cellar- austerity being a commonly attached word to the 1950s of course. Ruth Wilson's character is impeccably played- precise, quietly elegant yet also with a sense of modernity, charmingly gauche and intelligent in nature. David Walliam's character- also, no doubt charimsatic and intellectual- can, in one way, be seen as a metaphor for the unhibited nature that the permissive 1960s will bring, as he fills the mind of Ruth Wilson's character with unforgettably extreme images- just as he inhabits the confines of her mind, they are literally confined in a cellar. Yet, in another way,
it is Walliams' character who is the most genuinely 'austere' one- as the 1960s starts swinging, he turns out in the same smart suit and tie at parties where his power is starting to diminish with the 'groovy' partygoers.

The very fact that he remains changeless seems to hold an eternal power over Ruth Wilson's character. He holds power over her that is never undone because she never confronts him about it.

I was reminded of the ambiguity of Henry James' 'ghost story' 'The Turn of the Screw' but, just as importantly, it felt like the most mature encapsulation of the 1950s/1960s for a particular strata of society who were sometimes instigators of the changes taking place in society.
























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