The Last Days of Lehman Brothers: review

John Preston reviews The Last Days of Lehman Brothers, BBC Two's dramatic account of the start of the economic crisis, plus Agatha Christie's Marple (ITV1) and Land Girls (BBC One).
There’s nothing quite like a drama about the financial crisis for bringing out the apocalyptic imagery. The Last Days of Lehman Brothers (Wednesday, BBC Two) even had the CEO of the company, Dick Fuld (Corey Johnson), reciting glumly from the Book of Revelation at one point – none too plausibly, he was joined by his PA who proved to be just as clued-up about the End of Days as he did.

But if some of The Last Days of Lehman Brothers was a little heavy-handed, a lot of it was not. The action took place over the course of a weekend, starting off with Lehman Brothers ‘going into freefall’ on Friday afternoon. To begin with, the board confidently assumed that the US government would bail them out. Then the US Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson (James Cromwell icily sardonic behind rimless glasses), made it plain that no one will be riding to the rescue. Instead, they’re heading for the biggest bankruptcy in history.

Paulson had some pulpit theatrics of his own: ‘The West is f-----. We’ve had Rome, then Europe, then us. We’ve screwed it up.’ Once again, this breast-beating owed more to authorial wishful thinking than it did to plausibility.

If I hadn’t read beforehand about how Last Days had been written and shot in a tremendous hurry, I think I might have guessed. The tone wobbled awkwardly at times, as did the focus. However, its faults were always faults of ambition, not timidity. Craig Warner’s script consistently aimed high, with his boardroom exchanges being especially good: the chippy competitiveness and testosterone surges slowly subsiding into stunned disbelief.

As Dick Fuld, Corey Johnson gave a convincing impersonation of someone whose insides were simultaneously liquefying and boiling. Near the end, he was seen staring at his reflection in his office bathroom in a gloomy, self-examining sort of way when the lights went out. He waved his arms about and they came on again. A bit over-symbolic? Perhaps, but it kept on happening and after a while Fuld resembled a mad conductor trying to control a non-existent orchestra.

Now to much homelier blood-letting. Agatha Christie’s Marple (Sunday, ITV1) saw Julia McKenzie take up the sacred bonnet dropped by Geraldine McEwan. In obvious contrast to McEwan’s ‘Oh-my-fur-and-whiskers’ twitchiness, McKenzie is more restrained, being neither batty, nor maddening, nor – as McEwan was – possessed of near-nympho flirtatiousness.

All this diffidence might seem like a good thing, but so far McKenzie’s Marple is a rather puddingy nonentity. And her sleuthing wasn’t that hot either. Indeed for much of last Sunday’s opener, the detective (excellently played by Matthew Macfadyen), was doing a perfectly good job by himself. It was only when the plot lurched into absurdity that she stepped forward to point the finger at smoothie charmer Rupert Graves. Instead of snarlingly showing his true colours when he was arrested – as tradition dictates – Graves just slipped inconspicuously into a police car, while ‘Marple’ stumped sadly back to St Mary Mead.

If, for troubling reasons of your own, you want your Agatha Christie full of mahogany tans and breast-implants, Harper’s Island (Monday, BBC Three) is a thumpingly cack-handed version of Ten Little Indians set off the coast of Seattle. Fans of the movie Cool Runnings – none more devoted than myself – may have been interested to note that this episode of Harper’s Island was directed by the same man, Jon Turteltaub.

Whatever Turteltaub has been doing since Cool Runnings, it seems safe to say he hasn’t been brushing up on his chiaroscuro technique: one man here was decapitated by a speedboat, while another was castrated with a carving knife. Even Geraldine McEwan’s winsome little smile might have slipped a bit at this.

Land Girls (Monday-Friday, BBC One) went out at 5.15pm every afternoon, which might lead you to assume it was meant for children. Except it wasn’t, not really. It just wasn’t meant for adults either. Set in the Second World War, it had four lavishly overdrawn girls – Posh, Frumpy, Kindly and Dafty – being billeted in a stately home lived in by heartless Lady Hoxley (Sophie Ward) and her weedy husband, Nathaniel Parker.

Posh (Nancy) fell for Lord Weedy, but he ended up dying in her arms. She was terribly upset by this and tears coursed most decoratively down her cheeks. However, by the very next scene she’d cheered up a good deal – so much so she could barely stop smiling. Viewers may have taken rather longer to regain their equilibrium.