There aren’t that many television dramas which can truly claim to having changed the world. One of the few that can, in its own way, was 1975’s The Naked Civil Servant, produced for Thames Television by the late Verity Lambert and starring John Hurt as Quentin Crisp. For many people, it was their first representation of an overtly camp gay man that showed the human being underneath, and helped encourage both straight people to be more tolerant and gay people to be more self-confident.
Now, some 34 years later, Hurt reprises his role in a one-off story of Crisp’s latter years, An Englishman in New York, showing on ITV1 this coming Monday.
Warning: spoilers after the jump
As with the original film, An Englishman in New York is a somewhat fictionalised version of events, but the core of the story is factual. It chronicles the effect the original film had on Crisp and his reputation — which, in the UK at least, seem to have been more negative than positive: “it gave them a name for their hatred”, Hurt’s Crisp notes as he receives yet another abusive telephone call.
It is when The Naked Civil Servant is shown on American public service television that things begin to change. Brought to New York for various public events, he is soon a regular on the Manhattan theatre scene, holding court in a series of one-man shows where he delivers aphorisms left, right and centre to an adoring audience. It is here where we see the cracks begin to emerge: when a gay man in the audience decries him for not speaking for him, Crisp declares that he has long ago accepted that he does not speak for anyone but himself, mere seconds after he has declared in a sweeping statement that gay men cannot find love.
Whether it’s a deliberate counterpoint in the script, I couldn’t quite tell — certainly Crisp was not the first person, and will not be the last, to make a living out of grand generalisations but say they are only speaking for themselves when challenged. But intentional or not, it strikes to the heart of what An Englishman in New York is all about: Crisp’s attempt, as he ages and nears death, to work out exactly what his place in the world is, and to face up to the responsibility he has acquired as a figurehead for gay people.
Hired as a film reviewer for one of New York’s gay publications, Crisp strikes up a friendship with the magazine’s editor, Phillip Steele (Denis O’Hare) and it is through their two pairs of different eyes that one of the main subplots — the increase in prevalence of HIV, and its devastating effect on gay men — is shown. While Phillip finds himself increasingly politicised, Crisp dismisses the epidemic as a “fad” with a glib wave of the hand.
With a single statement, his career as a teller of anecdotes is taken from under him. While his explanation of why he said what he did to Phillip does make some sense, Crisp’s refusal to apologise ostracises him more and more. The only person who will give him the time of day is struggling painter Patrick Angus (Jonathan Tucker), a fan who hangs on Crisp’s every word and has taken them to heart.
As Crisp’s friendship with Patrick grows, we see that the artist has started to live his life in a way almost dictated by Crisp’s on-stage dismissiveness. And it’s here where the film is strongest, as Tucker portrays a young man who is evidently in intense emotional pain throughout, playing opposite Hurt’s study of an old man who is gradually realising the effect his statements of hedonistic nihilism have had on the impressionable young man.
It is not too much of a spoiler to reveal that Patrick is lost to Aids shortly thereafter. And it is here, with the breakup of the pairing of Hurt and Tucker, that the film falters most. Jumping straight to Crisp’s new friendship with performance artist Penny Arcade (played by Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon) may be chronologically accurate, but it makes the story seem a little too episodic. It’s not helped by Hurt’s first scenes with Nixon being overladen with a script that has more in common with Socratic dialogue than it does with television drama. Thankfully, this is but a blip, as Crisp finds a new lease of life with a renewed reputation on the smaller, but hipper, cabaret circuit.
Spanning as it does so many decades of Crisp’s later life, the evocation of time’s effects on a frail old gentleman is a triumph of co-operation between costume, make-up and Hurt’s own portrayal. The real Crisp died on the eve of a speaking tour of his native England: rather than taking us up to that point, we leave Crisp on his last public engagement in the United States. The last images are of the man as he would surely want to be remembered: a now-rehabilitated raconteur, as out of time as he ever was but loved all the same.
It is a more personal story than its predecessor and for that reason, if nothing else, it will never have the impact that the original The Naked Civil Servant had. But for me, the fact that its core story is more personal, more subtle, makes it all the more affecting. When next year’s BAFTA television awards roll around, it’d be a risky move to bet against John Hurt receiving a nomination at the very least, for he has rarely been better. And it’s far and away the best drama that ITV1 has produced for quite some time.
- An Englishman in New York, Monday December 28, ITV1, 9pm
- An Englishman In New York is released on DVD on December 28 - preorder now
What an excellent review of a moving documentary film of the aging Quentin Crisp.
I saw 'The Naked Civil Servant' on ITV television as a young man (a memorable experience as it is unique and brilliant).
I also saw Quentin Crisp's one man show at the Windmill Theatre in London in late 1977 or early 1978.
What a pleasure to see this follow-up film all these years later.
John Hurt portraying Quentin Crisp is wonderful. His performance is a tour de force. It's as if this film was made only 1 or 2 years after the original magical masterpiece of a television film!