The Alan Clark Diaries

II REMEMBER reading The Alan Clark Diaries about ten years ago as I travelled to a business conference. I may not have been in support of his political convictions, but it requires a certain skill with words, nerve even, to reveal his often irreverent thoughts with such charm as to make these Diaries compulsive reading.

They reveal a man deeply insecure about himself and therefore obsessed about things that would make him feel good. These included his irresistible attraction to the ladies. He must have given more than merely a passing thought to just about every female who he came into contact with at whatever level of closeness. His wife, Jane, is to be commended for sticking by him throughout his various dalliances. He was clearly very fond of her despite his deviations and their relationship must have been a very special and unique one which can only be understood by someone with similar outlook or enjoying a similarly unique bond with their partner.

Clark believed that going against the establishment would give him the confidence he lacked. Consequently he even considered standing for the National Front, writing, "I'm the nearest thing they're likely to get to an MP". He professed belief in National Socialism and was vehemently anti-European.

His descriptions of political events are precise without being turgid, always lightening things when necessary with astute observations about his peers, fellow politicians and others crossing his path, but expressed in a delightful ‘tongue in cheek manner’ .

It was perhaps with a little more trepidation than optimism that I looked forward to the much hyped showing of The Alan Clark Diaries on BBC2 television last night. Hype in my experience isn’t always a good thing. It doesn’t always mean the ‘product’ will necessarily meet the assumed expectation. I had wondered how the producers would manage to convey the books’ humour onto the small screen and also whether the diary element would work. I was a little more convinced that it would be worth watching when I read the programme had received the highest viewing figures of anything that has been shown on digital BBC Four up to now.

The Diaries’ onscreen success will be down, in no small part, to the inspired casting of one of Britain’s most accomplished actors, John Hurt, in the role of Clark and Jenny Agutter as the MP’s long suffering wife, Jane. There was always a danger that a piece like this would become quasi-documentary and the books’ humour therefore lost. But no, the ‘feel’ of individual entries or ‘thoughts’ is brilliantly portrayed in short, vignette-like scenes, such as the moment when Clark learns he has been selected to join the Cabinet for the first time and his wife hands him the confirmation letter over the railway station fence as he is about to board the train to travel to his Plymouth constituency.

The thoughts of this deceptively intelligent man, both significant and insignificant to the furthering of his political career are an ever-present backdrop to the scenes. The photography and mostly subdued lighting give the piece a sense of period, while brief flashes from the news archives expertly place it in time and context.

I am glad that I’d had the forethought to set my VCR to record last night’s episode. I have already set the timer for next week, since I know I’m going to want to enjoy the small screen version of The Alan Clark Diaries at least once more after all six instalments have been broadcast.

18/03/04