Hugh Bonneville in Douglas Is Cancelled – it’s comedy with a dark side

Douglas Is Cancelled ★★★★
Sunday, 8pm, ABC

Let’s talk about Hughs. There is a strong argument to suggest that, per capita, the name Hugh carries a greater volume of acting talent than any other. Grant. Laurie. Dancy. Jackman. Standing alongside these in the pantheon of beloved screen Hughs is Hugh Bonneville, a performer possessed of a wonderfully flexible Britishness. Most recognisably, Bonneville is adept at portraying a kind of harried high-status professional: men of power and influence who are nevertheless not in control of their own destinies and haplessly in thrall to more single-minded and devious forces surrounding them. In the new Douglas Is Cancelled, he plays the role again, but his art – and the art of the writer Steven Moffat (Sherlock, Doctor Who, Coupling, et al) – is in adding the subtle twist that turns the familiar character into something specific and individual.

Hugh Bonneville in Douglas Is Cancelled.Credit: Sally Mais/BBC Studios/Hartswood

Bonneville plays the titular Douglas, who is titularly cancelled. He is a successful, popular and wholesome-imaged breakfast television presenter whose life and career are smooth sailing, until they founder on some most unexpected rocks. A tweet surfaces claiming that Douglas made a sexist joke at a wedding. The accused man himself has no memory of the joke, but the allegation quickly spreads and spins out of control, Douglas’ life plunging into crisis as he attempts to navigate a situation that nothing in his experience has prepared him for.

His situation worsens, partly due to his own indecisive, easily manipulated nature. Around him are people who may or may not have his best interests at heart, particularly the two women in his life, both played, coincidentally, by old Doctor Who regulars. Alex Kingston plays Douglas’ wife, Sheila, the editor of a tabloid newspaper that specialises in destroying the careers of celebrities just like Douglas, over scandals just like this one – she understands how these things work, but perhaps a little too well. Flanking his other side is Douglas’ young co-presenter, Madeline, played by the outstanding Karen Gillan, who professes her support for her friend and colleague but is pursuing her own agenda: Gillan’s portrayal is a mixture of sweet smiles and steely glares, the truth about what she’s after and how she’s going about it coming on a slow dripfeed.

Douglas Is Cancelled is a comedy, to a certain extent: it’s certainly often very funny, with rat-tat-tat dialogue that at its best recalls the brilliance of Armando Ianucci’s satires Veep and The Thick of It. But it’s also a drama, and if you muted the show you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching a crime drama or political thriller: shot, edited and scored to maximise the feeling of tension and intrigue, this is about labyrinthine manoeuvrings and darkness in human hearts as much as giggles.

It’s also, obviously, about “cancel culture”, and the ongoing ferocious public discourse about whether, and to what extent, famous people should be punished for indiscretions. Should a man’s career be torpedoed by one tasteless joke, made in a private capacity? On the other hand, if you want to build a career on a public image, isn’t part of the deal actually making the effort to keep the image clean? By keeping the precise nature of Douglas’ gaffe hidden for a long time, the show deliberately prevents us from leaping to any easy conclusion about the truth. The mindset of social justice mobs is clearly satirised, particularly through characters like Douglas and Sheila’s daughter Claudia, who poutingly evinces the self-righteous, self-regarding cruelty of that class more interested in declaring themselves activists than in actual activism.

Nobody escapes Moffat’s skewer: the cynical hypocrisy of Sheila, the cold ambition of Madeline and the moral vacuum of Toby, Douglas’ producer (Ben Miles), who tries to present a front of hard-headed realism but struggles due to his innate lack of connection with other humans, are all sketched scathingly.

But Douglas, the ostensible hero of the piece, is perhaps torn apart by the script most of all, a decent and likeable man whose weakness of character can’t help but make the question “Does he deserve this?” become ever more complicated. The show as a whole succeeds mightily by mixing sharp wit, intelligent exploration of tricky moral questions, and a twisty, gripping story that can stand on its own merits.

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