Tuesday Motivation

Capital review – a complicated and brilliant portrait of London life

The eponymous novel by John Lanchester is transported to an all-too-recognisable suburban street, unfolding the lives of its complex residents, where somebody wants what they have

Roger (played by Toby Jones), at 92 Pepys Road. Photograph: BBC/Kudos/Hal Shinnie

How much of a city of 8.5 million can you get into one south London street? Capital (BBC1), adapted from John Lanchester’s novel, manages a lot.

Petunia is at 84 (Pepys Road and about that in years, too), an old-school native who has been here for ever. The modern metropolitan world might confuse her a bit (Gemma Jones is so good at being old and confused) – Indians, Pakistanis, Hindus, Muslims, what is the difference? – but she’s more accepting of it than her recently deceased husband. Ahmed, who’s very good to Petunia, and his family, second generation Pakistani immigrants, run the corner shop. Roger, a banker, and his family, who don’t know Petunia or Ahmed, are in the big double-fronted number 92, with the Range Rover outside.

But then there’s everything and everyone else that comes with them. So Petunia’s grandson is a hoodied Banksy-style street artist, who may or may not have something to do with the postcards with “WE WANT WHAT YOU HAVE” written on them that keep coming through everyone’s door. At the shop, Ahmed and his brothers, Shahid and Usman, have varying relationships with Islam, ranging from very casual to susceptible to fundamentalism. Mum appears at the dinner table, courtesy of Skype, from Pakistan.

And at 92, it’s not just Roger and his big-spending wife, Arabella, and their expensively schooled boys, Conrad and Joshua, but also the army of subsidiary personnel required to keep a family like that ticking over and help them spend their money – Spanish nannies, flirty eastern European builders to build wet rooms and then unbuild them when they go out of fashion, gardeners, etc. Then, in the street, visible to most only as an irritation, is the most recent arrival, Zimbabwean asylum seeker/illegal worker Quentina, slapping parking tickets on the cars. Go on, put another on the Range Rover, it’s so big (especially next to the man who drives it; Roger is played – capitally – by Toby Jones).

Meanwhile, the house prices flick up at a terrifying rate, like the numbers on a petrol pump in full flow. And, if we just rise up from the street and look in a north-easterly direction, there in the distance are the towers, the gherkins and cheese graters, of the City – mainly to thank/blame for the madness, as well as being where Roger scuttles off to each morning.

So, obviously, that’s not every single aspect of London, but Lanchester – and in turn Peter Bowker and Euros Lyn, who have adapted and directed so excellently – have managed to squeeze an incredible amount into one street, one book, and then further squeeze into three hours of television. A lot of the important stuff, as well as what is most wonderful and most terrible about the place.

It’s more complicated – and more interesting – than just wonderful and terrible. So Roger might be a banker (boo) and an idiot, but he’s not an entirely unsympathetic character. I even felt a bit sorry for him when his bonus was only £30,000. (“What use is £30,000 to anybody?”) Arabella is the real monster, almost too much of one (“Now where do you stand vis-a-vis cedar wood cladding?” to Bogdan the builder). But even she has an ember of humanity and is touched by the generosity of Ahmed with coriander on her first-ever visit to her local shop. Most of the viewer’s sympathy is directed towards Quentina, though. Who’d have thought it – traffic warden love?

It’s all so instantly recognisable. I live in the capital, in a street from a similar era, though in a far less salubrious area (house prices, obviously still insane, but about a third of Pepys Road). We have pretty much that exact shop. And a few – fewer and fewer – Petunias. There aren’t any bankers, or Range Rovers, or basement excavations, the City’s actual physical shadow hasn’t reached Dollis Hill yet, but the shadows of the shadows have, a couple of doctors moved in to where Jimmy (male Petunia, basically) lived, there’s a lawyer or two, plus the odd nanny. Not to mention the bloody Guardian. The issues, the conversations, the obsessions and the fears are the same.

It’s not just a brilliant allegorical portrait of London. There are stories to tell, the postcards keep coming, then DVDs, someone really WANTS WHAT THEY HAVE. Probably everyone does (I’m quite jealous of Arabella and Roger’s kitchen, to be honest). There’s some dodgy stuff going on in the bank, Petunia has a brain tumour and is dying, Arabella’s off, a new nanny arrives (well, hello), Quentina’s banged up and may be deported. We’re heading for a crash, big bang, meltdown. Is it that kind of Capital, too: not just principal city and wealth, but also punishable by death? Because Pepys Road, its residents, London itself, has cancer – a tumour of greed, and mistrust, hatred and pointlessness.

Amanda Abbington

Amanda Abbington is still publicising on her bad experience whilst on BBC Strictly Come Dancing, it is starting to be yesterday’s news.

Not sure I’ve heard her say it before that Giovanni Pernice called her a vegetable when not getting a dance move right, as you can imagine the hurt and pain of such language has left her scared.

When on Newsnight she was asked if she could not come off social media as she has stated she has had hundreds of threats, all very serious and I’m not belittling the threats.

She replied she could not leave Facebook as that is where her friends are, that may be the case but if locked down correctly people can’t message or communicate with you via that platform and from the perspective of all platforms, what is the better of the two evils ?

Surely true friends would understand and have her mobile details etc ?

Yesterday she had an interview with The Sun on Sunday that included a video taster, I will let you watch and make up your own mind.

I’m sorry but I suffered more abuse than Abbington and I’m not going around with a tissue at the ready.

She talks about Pernice in a way belittling the menopause but yet on occasions they shared laughter on the menopause, she needs to make up her mind.

She is talking with her pro bono lawyers on a day-by-day basis, is she sure ? If the case they have too much time on their hands.

She should employ Gloria Allred who is dealing with many of the Al Fayed claimants, trouble is she won’t want to employ anyone she has to pay and in all honesty I’m not sure Allred would touch her story because ultimately, is there a story ?