I’m all for spontaneity, but can we schedule some time for it?
Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2022.
#26 : Julia
One of the finest actors in existence, Sarah Lancashire took the US by storm in 2022 by not only playing, but being the living, brow-mopping embodiment of Julia Child, the cookbook author who revolutionised television with her nascent cookery programme, The French Chef. This drama followed her as she came, used lashings of butter, cracked copious coq puns – and made Americans fall for her even as the (inevitably male) TV executives around her willed her “little show” to flop like a soggy baguette. Furring up your arteries has never been such fun. Bon appetit!
It's got Sarah Lancashire in it - I'm sold! Along with Sheridan Smith and Suranne Jones, she's a reliable indicator of quality - trying to balance things up for the guys, I came up with Michael Sheen and David Tennant (which reminded me that the next season of Good Omens is out soon). Back to Julia, I've heard great things about it and if the Americans accepted a Brit playing one of their cultural icons then it's got to be an impressive bit of telly.
Yeah, it's an impressive and enjoyable bit of telly indeed. Unlike a lot of what we've seen on the list so far, it tells a straightforward tale in a linear and realistic manner - well, I say straightforward but you wouldn't believe how much fuss it was to get a cookery program made. It's fair to say that the culture wasn't exactly set up to enable women to actually achieve anything back then - but Julia Child had a plan! And Julia is certainly an interesting character - headstrong at times, plagued with self-doubt at others. She also had plenty of women helping her out who got no credit at all (and to be fair, the odd man or two who sided with her as well).
Although the program is centred around a cookery program, it's certainly not just about the cooking - a lot of it is also about relationships. Julia's relationship with her husband Paul was a very curious one - they're certainly portrayed as very much in love, but there are also plenty of things they just couldn't discuss. Familial relationships (Julia and her father and Alice and her mother are both beautifully drawn) and friendships are also on display, as is the position of women within society - it certainly feels like Julia's program filled a basic need of the time. Yes, it's somewhat of a cliché that the women were doing the cooking - but in a lot of cases they had to do it, so it couldn't hurt for them to have someone help them enjoy it! It also, quite spikily, considers the other side of the coin - was Julia handcuffing women to the stove?
Sarah Lancashire is exceptionally good as Julia - I thought she was putting on a very strange voice until I checked out what Julia actually sounded like and after that I was like "well, she could have made it a lot stranger". It's quite an odd role because although Julia is the heroine of our tale, she does quite a lot of things that very much test our patience with her, but it feels like a very honest portrayal.
Which brings me on to some casting quibbles - David Hyde Pierce is very good as Paul Child (a difficult man with his heart in the right place), but I couldn't help but feel that the role was a little bit close to Niles Crane for comfort. Which might have been fine except that Bebe Neuwirth (Lilith from Cheers) was cast as Avis Devoto - she's also very good though and pleasingly different from Lilith (she smiles, after all!).
Also excellent is Brittany Bradford as Alice Naman who, unlike most characters in the tale, was not a real person but a composite character showing how much fun it was to make your way in a male-dominated world - she takes to the challenge well. Fran Kranz is also great as Russell Morash - a man who goes on a journey whilst unhappily handcuffed to a surprisingly successful express train. But I think my favourite supporting character was Fiona Glascott as Judith Jones - she plays the role with a very dry humour, with some rollercoaster highs and lows conveyed with the swiftest of glances or comments.
It's excellently shot - there are a lot of locations used, both internal and external and a lot of work has gone into getting the details right (they must have scoured the country for 60s cars). I'd have to say restaurants in the 60s looked they were a lot of fun and the gala dinner scene in the hotel is just beautiful. It also has pleasingly short titles - the episode name followed by a page that just says Julia, and that's it.
Wikipedia has some fascinating entries on the various characters - they're all worth reading, but here are some highlights to draw you in. As part of her wartime role, Julia invented a shark repellant which is still used and she was also awarded France's Legion Of Honour and the American Presidential Medal of Freedom later in life. The French Chef (the cookery show) was the first educational program to win an Emmy. Judith Jones is best known for having rescued The Diary of Anne Frank from the reject pile, as well as championing Mastering the Art of French Cooking (which was actually written by Julia and two other women, but they don't get too much of a look-in here - one appears from time to time, played by Isabella Rossellini, but her role isn't made very clear).
To sum up, this is a very enjoyable show telling an interesting story with an excellent cast which really draws you back to the time - it's well worth a watch. Yes, it doesn't have that high concept that a lot of the shows we've seen have but that just makes for a refreshing change - this is something you could watch with your parents without having to explain what was going on every five minutes. And Sarah Lancashire really is a national treasure - it's lovely that her foray across the Altlantic was so well received. At the time of writing it's available to watch on Sky/Now TV and there's far worse on there, I can assure you.
Bon appetit!
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