A Very English Scandal; The Handmaid’s Tale

“It is a drama as brutally funny, endlessly clever, justifiably confident as its protagonist; an immaculately-scripted hour that entwines two decades of salient political history with a finely-worked portrait of the English establishment.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“It has a sheen and attention to detail rivalling The Crown. But there’s no cosy nostalgia in this blackly comic dissection of a repressed world and its ruling class. It was an all-too-rare reminder of what a fantastic actor Hugh Grant can be, perfectly capturing Thorpe’s old school dandy charms.”
Jeff Robson, The i

“It’s not a particularly subtle performance from Grant. But having broken out of a chrysalis in Stephen Frears’s Florence Foster Jenkins, Grant has here made another deft progression with the same director, lacing his trademark polish with outright unpleasantness. Hideously entertaining.”
Jasper Rees, The Telegraph

“As a piece of drama I loved it. That was largely because of Hugh Grant. His Jeremy Thorpe was a joy; so multilayered that he managed to catch his funny, urbane charisma while channelling the dark, narcissistically ruthless side.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Whatever the reason, Grant is completely convincing as the Sixties Liberal leader, Jeremy Thorpe. Hollow-cheeked and gimlet-eyed, Thorpe always sported a five o’clock shadow that looked creepily like the growth of beard on a corpse, and Grant mimics it perfectly. Even his cheesy smile is replaced with a skull-like grimace.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“As this witty but thoughtful TV treatment tells it, a scandal always involves two people. And as the blackmailing, chaos bringing, eternally returning Josiffe, Ben Whishaw turns in a performance every bit as spiffing as Grant’s Thorpe.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“Grim stuff, but compelling — oh, my, it was compelling. And terrifying because it doesn’t seem impossible that this stuff could happen. Elizabeth Moss is as commanding as ever, her facial expressions an entire conversation, and the events are in keeping with what we’ve come to expect.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“While the atmospherics are grimmer than ever, it did fleetingly seem as if, cut off from the source, the writing might be cruder, woollier. In fact there’s no fear of that. Now that no one knows what’s coming, the story has the freedom to wrong-foot. Moss must have no qualms about this return. It’s the role of a lifetime, and she is its powerful equal.”
Jasper Rees, The Telegraph

“Some of it was a little too obvious and over-manipulative; the juxtaposition of scenes of extreme torture with a plangent pop classic on the soundtrack is becoming an over-familiar trope. But for the most part this was impassioned, intelligent and essential viewing.”
Jeff Robson, The i

”No dilution or loss of plot yet, in an extraordinary first episode that will ring on in your nightmares like Aunt Lydia’s bell.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian