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| Page 7 | Book Reviews Non-Fiction |
March 2006 |
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Music -
Live The Two of Us, My life with John Thaw by Sheila Hancock, Bloomsbury, paperback, 301 pages, ISBN 0-7475-7709-9, distributed by Raincoast Books
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By Alidė Kohlhaas One of the really great actors who graced the television screen for many years was the late, much mourned John Thaw. Anyone, who watches either Ontario's TVO or a US PBS network station, in my case WNED Buffalo/Toronto, will know Thaw from two series: Inspector Morse, and Kavanagh QC. These two British productions have entertained us for many years. No doubt, one day they will return as reruns because they are both great TV and also offer good acting. Of the two, Morse was the greater character. It gave John Thaw an opportunity to really immerse himself into a very complicated personality, created by mystery writer Colin Dexter.
Thaw died of cancer of the esophagus on Feb. 21, 2002 at age 60, one day before his wife's 69th birthday. Some felt that the death of Inspector Morse in episode 33, the final in the series, aired in the fall of 2000 - The Remorseful Day - seemed to be a premonition of what was to come. That, however, is taking things too far. Thaw was not diagnosed with having cancer until June 2001. Sheila Hancock, his widow, has written The Two of Us, My Life with John Thaw. Many people will know her from having seen her on The East Enders and other British series, the latest of which was Charles Dickens' Bleak House in which she played Mrs. Guppy. She has always been one of England's great character actresses, and now she has shown us that she has a great gift for capturing in writing - without holding back - what it meant to be married to Thaw. Theirs is certainly a great love story, but one that had considerable obstacles to overcome. She begins the story with herself - THE GIRL - to give the reader some background into her own life and what shaped it. But from the very beginning there are dated entries that appear to be from a diary scattered throughout the text. Nine years older than Thaw, she began life on the Isle of Wight, but remembers little about it as her parents ran various pubs for a brewery other parts of England. Like Thaw, then, she is of working class background, something both had to overcome to reach the RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) education they both desired. This chapter is followed by one titled The Boy, which gives us not just the usual information about place of birth, but also a closer look at Thaw's complicated family background. Manchester-born and raised, he and his brother grew up motherless, something that lay at the root of Thaw's complicated nature. Hancock brings this background out with considerable taste and sensitivity. Yet, she spares neither herself nor her readers anything. Hancock is a breast cancer survivor, and she also lost her first husband to cancer. Consequently, she understood what Thaw would be facing and how he might react to his illness at a time when they had just reach a point in their lives where they should have been able to sit back and relax in their love. That life did not play the role they had envisioned is one of those fateful things over which we have no control. Let is suffice that Hancock was and is a survivor and only last year played a major role in the play, The Anniversary, at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End. This, of course, is not in the book. It was originally published by Bloomsbury in 2004, with the paperback edition coming out in 2005. You don't even have to be a Morse fanatic, or a John Thaw fan to enjoy reading it. It offers a lesson on life that informs us that even those who seem to lead charmed lives have their shadows. We tend to forget this when we experience tough patches in our lives and sometimes look with envy at the 'stars'. We forget they are just ordinary folk. |
