Once again, a retelling of events in the past is viewed and skewed by a production team who were not around at the time, and how they got so much of it so wrong. I was in my 20's at the time and remember the details of the affair clearly. Crowds of reporters outside the courts, their homes, everywhere they went reporting on what they were wearing, who had done their hair, nails, make up down to the last detail - just as the Daily Mail still does with celebrities today. There are enough old newsreels and newspaper articles in the archives for the writers and wardrobe people to have done their homework and got it right.
The Profumo affair was a major, major event which dominated the tabloid press for a couple of years in the early 60's. Everyone and his brother was selling their story to the press. The similarity between Stephen Ward and Jeffrey Epstein is striking, especially given the different attitudes of the time and the treatment of the girls. Ward became the fall guy due to his embarrassing the establishment, and after his suicide, Christine Keeler became the scapegoat because SOMEONE had to be punished. Just as Ghislaine Maxwell became the target after Espstein gave justice the slip.
My problems were not just with the constant confusing flashbacks, but with the miscasting of Sophie Cookson as Christine. The physical appearance and in particular the voice were all wrong. Christine was tall and slender, well groomed with a very low voice, not the shrill piping of a short rather dumpty actress with either a bad wig or messy hair, looking as if she had just got out of bed. It might have been the script, but Ms. Cookson played her as a none-too-bright low class girl totally out of her depth - an uneducated girl with aspirations of being a model or showgirl but drawn to the seamy world of Notting Hill, and criminals like slumloard Peter Rachman - her own worst enemy. There were many small details where a bit of research would have helped. The affair and notoriety ruined Christine's life and she eked out the rest of her life in a council flat, living on welfare at times.
The current 'woke' sensibility just couldn't be left out with a speech by Valerie Profumo on how men treated women badly. Cue the violins. The depiction of London as a dark seedy underworld rather than conveying the optimistic city of bright lights was probably intentional as 'swinging London' was still just around the corner, and the world of Ward's girls was on the fringes of the underworld - showgirls and hostesses in drinking clubs catering to men with money looking for a taste of the forbidden. Theirs was the world of Ruth Ellis. While Christine, and Mandy may not have been prostitutes, their friends Paula Hamilton Marshall and Ronnie Ricardo certainly were and it would only take a snap of the fingers and running out of rent money to tip them into the life.
The Profumo affair was a major, major event which dominated the tabloid press for a couple of years in the early 60's. Everyone and his brother was selling their story to the press. The similarity between Stephen Ward and Jeffrey Epstein is striking, especially given the different attitudes of the time and the treatment of the girls. Ward became the fall guy due to his embarrassing the establishment, and after his suicide, Christine Keeler became the scapegoat because SOMEONE had to be punished. Just as Ghislaine Maxwell became the target after Espstein gave justice the slip.
My problems were not just with the constant confusing flashbacks, but with the miscasting of Sophie Cookson as Christine. The physical appearance and in particular the voice were all wrong. Christine was tall and slender, well groomed with a very low voice, not the shrill piping of a short rather dumpty actress with either a bad wig or messy hair, looking as if she had just got out of bed. It might have been the script, but Ms. Cookson played her as a none-too-bright low class girl totally out of her depth - an uneducated girl with aspirations of being a model or showgirl but drawn to the seamy world of Notting Hill, and criminals like slumloard Peter Rachman - her own worst enemy. There were many small details where a bit of research would have helped. The affair and notoriety ruined Christine's life and she eked out the rest of her life in a council flat, living on welfare at times.
The current 'woke' sensibility just couldn't be left out with a speech by Valerie Profumo on how men treated women badly. Cue the violins. The depiction of London as a dark seedy underworld rather than conveying the optimistic city of bright lights was probably intentional as 'swinging London' was still just around the corner, and the world of Ward's girls was on the fringes of the underworld - showgirls and hostesses in drinking clubs catering to men with money looking for a taste of the forbidden. Theirs was the world of Ruth Ellis. While Christine, and Mandy may not have been prostitutes, their friends Paula Hamilton Marshall and Ronnie Ricardo certainly were and it would only take a snap of the fingers and running out of rent money to tip them into the life.