II WATCHED the TV drama (BBC 2) about Stephen Hawking last night. I thought it would be quite difficult to watch, having been trailed and hyped as it had as an innovative piece of docu-drama reaching parts other dramas don’t reach, etc. In the event I found it to be rather bitty. No aspect of Hawking’s life was dealt with in any real depth, neither his illness nor the science. ‘Superficial’ was the word that sprang mind as I waited for the issues, which started out well enough, to take on greater significance and to be discussed at a level deeper than merely a flesh wound. Then, just as I was settling into the programme, expecting more to be ‘just around the corner’, the drama’s end was evident by the gaps in relevant information being filled by a few lines of text, before the final credits flashed in front of my eyes. Hardly a satisfying conclusion to a programme that had potentially promised so much.
Naturally I appreciate the difficulties of making a piece for television on a complex subject, scientifically speaking, and dealing with the intricacies of a degenerative illness in someone of such a brilliant mind as Hawking. The sensitivity of the topic being exacerbated by the fact that the subject of the programme is a living person. As the actor portraying Hawking said in an interview, it must have been ‘weird’ for the man himself to be transferred back in time as he witnessed the piece taking shape. All of a sudden he was seeing himself as a student back at Cambridge having to deal with the onset of Motor Neuron Disease.
14/04/04
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