There She Goes
Talking Heads
Rating: 
There’s a moment in every dad’s life when he realises his growing child is now faster than he is, and always will be.
For David Tennant’s character, Simon, in There She Goes (BBC2), it came at a school sports day as his 11-year-old daughter Rosie legged it across the field, heading for the horizon. There she goes indeed.
Rosie (played with convincing energy by Miley Locke) has a severe learning disability. She can’t talk — but she can’t half run.
There She Goes captures the exaggerated sense of chaos mingled with a secret pride that is familiar to many parents of wildly difficult children. We’ve learned to admire their ability to ignore all social conventions
Simon watched his wife Emily (Jessica Hynes) hare after her, and he jogged along in their wake, knowing he was beaten before he started.
The day I found out my own son, David (also a non-talker and a sprinter), could out-run me, he scaled the garden gate and loped down the lane towards the main road at the back of our house. By the time I reached the corner, he was 50 yards ahead of me and zig-zagging into the traffic.
All thanks to the gods of autism, it was bin day that morning, and David slowed down to push over every wheelie bin. I caught him after the eighth.
There She Goes captures the exaggerated sense of chaos mingled with a secret pride that is familiar to many parents of wildly difficult children. We’ve learned to admire their ability to ignore all social conventions.
Emily watched her daughter sweep shelves of books onto the library floor and then pluck the dummy out of a baby’s mouth to chew on it herself.
Writers Shaun Pye and Sarah Crawford, basing the story on their own experiences, show the toll it takes on Simon in particular — fending off reality with bad jokes, cigarettes and red wine
‘Rosie loves it here,’ she confided to an aghast librarian.
At sports day before the races, Rosie sat in the school hall with her coat over her head to shut out all the chatter. Think of all the meetings or lectures where you might have loved to do that, but would never dare.
The rewards don’t always outweigh the exhaustion and despair of parenting a child like Rosie.
Writers Shaun Pye and Sarah Crawford, basing the story on their own experiences, show the toll it takes on Simon in particular — fending off reality with bad jokes, cigarettes and red wine.
This is the second series, and it’s a pity that they’ve stuck to the half-hour format.
Peter Bowker’s full-length drama The A Word on BBC1 shows what can be done with similar material, by exploring the toll taken on all the family. I’d love to know more about how Emily bears the strain, and the effect on Rosie’s big brother, Ben (Edan Hayhurst).
Next time, each episode ought to run for an hour.
Half an hour is perfect, however, for Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads (BBC1), which ended with a new monologue called The Shrine. Monica Dolan played Lorna, whose middle-aged husband Clifford was killed on his motorbike while on a bird-watching expedition.
Half an hour is perfect, however, for Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads (BBC1), which ended with a new monologue called The Shrine. Monica Dolan played Lorna, whose middle-aged husband Clifford was killed on his motorbike while on a bird-watching expedition
At least, Lorna told herself he was bird-watching. As always in these playlets, couched in the blandest colloquial language, it’s what we hear between the lines that says most.
Dolan delivered a tightly controlled performance, her emotions not so much repressed as smothered to death.
She never actually said her marriage to Clifford was devoid of physical affection, but we gradually understood how lonely she had been for years before he died.
Steeling herself to visit the place where he crashed, she said, ‘I thought I ought to put in an appearance,’ as though it was a W.I. meeting.
A moment of graphic sexual detail struck a jarring note. It’s one of Bennett’s trademarks, but I wish he wouldn’t do it.
‘Just really not necessary,’ as one of his characters might say.
Medicine of the night: Jean, 83, was in agony after putting her back out. She could barely speak in Ambulance (BBC1).
But after a pain-killing injection, she was laughing and flirting with paramedic Eric.
‘You’re a very handsome young man,’ she sighed.
That jab was clearly strong stuff.