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Goodnight
Mister Tom TV Drama
Pam Francis, TV
Times, 25 October 1998
Buy
the DVD of this award winning Drama
Michelle and John Thaw
on the film set of Goodnight Mister Tom
Maybe it's because
he plays his characters with a certain endearing
grumpiness that you somehow imagine John Thaw is
going to be equally bad-tempered. He's not. There's
a relaxed warmth and gentleness that is quite a
surprise from the actor renowned for playing tough
cookies like Jack Regan of The Sweeney and
Inspector Morse. 'I do have my grumpy
moments if things aren't going very well. But I'm
no more grumpy than anyone else' he says, pouring
himself a coffee as he eases back into a sofa.
There's nothing forceful or showbizzy about him. He
is quietly confident and, if anything, slightly
shy. More like a kindly uncle in manner than one of
TV's millionaire actors, his snow-white hair
framing his face and his soft blue eyes. If meeting
him isn't surprise enough, his latest ITV role
certainly is. Complete with whiskers and a beard,
looking not unlike Father Christmas, he stars in
Goodnight Mister Tom.
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"It's
a pity this war time drama's being shown at such a
late hour, since it's adapted from a well-known
children's novel and would make perfect teatime
viewing. John Thaw takes the lead as the
curmudgeonly rural widower Tom Oakley, who's got
Victor Meldrew's personality and the beard of Uncle
Albert from Only Fools and Horses. Although
the character is obviously different from Morse and
Kavanagh, 'the beard adds another dimension' John
says. Old Tom is none too pleased to be landed with
a young boy evacuated form Blitz-torn London during
the War, but there are nice surprises ahead in this
shamelessly heart-warming drama.
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It's a two-hour wartime drama about a widower, Tom Oakley,
whose gentle village life changes radically when he's forced
to take in an emotionally damaged nine-year old evacuee from
London's East End.As Tom, whose own wife and son are dead,
takes on the job of improving Willie's reading ad writing, a
bond grows between the child and the old man. It couldn' be
more different from John's usual on-screen task of tracking
down killers, But when he read the story, he was hooked.
'We've all been children and felt unloved and, hopefully,
loved. It has universal appeal because in a way, it's about
everyone. It's about how two people find love and how each
is needed by the other. That's what all human beings crave
really. It's a relationship. And the boy has never had a
relationship with his mother. John knows exactly what it's
like to grow up without the love of a mother. When he was
only six years old, his mother Dorothy left his father for
another man, abandoning him and his brother Raymond, aged
five. He was brought up in Manchester by his hardworking
lorry driver father, also called John, who died of cancer in
1997 aged 78."
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