Mrs Wilson, BBC One, review: a remarkable story – but how true is it?
The following is inspired by real events.” A standard disclaimer appeared on screen at the start of BBC One’s Mrs Wilson. As per usual, the wording invited viewers to lend a base level of credence to the scenes about to play out. But which bits are we to believe in? This three-part drama is the merely truish story of Ruth Wilson’s grandmother, Alison, who, upon being widowed in 1960, discovered that her late husband Alec had another wife and family.
The remarkable thing about Alec Wilson is that, as a secret service officer, he lived at the centre of such a dense cat’s cradle of classified information that verifiable facts are elusive. And that’s the way it will remain, Ruth Wilson has said, until documents kept under lock and key thanks to the Official Secrets Act are released. Freedom of Information request, anyone?
And so, true to the spirit of its subject, the script by Anna Symon feels like the latest embellishment, another layer of falsifications to go with all the others. It may be inspired by real events, but we are strongly advised to take nowt for gospel.
What we know so far, in so far as anyone knows anything, is that shortly after the death of Alec (Iain Glen), Alison placed a phone call, as instructed, to a mystery number. She soon received a knock on the door from strangers purporting to be his widow Gladys (Elizabeth Rider) and his son Dennis (Patrick Kennedy), the latter demanding the body. Soon Alison was attempting her own subterfuges, forging a decree absolute and hoodwinking her sons Gordon (Calam Lynch) and Nigel (Otto Farrant, playing Ruth Wilson’s father).
But that’s not all. As things stand, Keeley Hawes is lurking at the edge of the screen. She would seem to be Dorothy, the existence of whom was unveiled at the climax of episode one. At such a juncture, you could only throw up your hands and reach for Lady Bracknell. To discover your husband indulged in bigamy may be counted a misfortune. Trigamy looks like carelessness. The script craftily trowelled on the hints and nudges that Alec was Not To Be Trusted. “I just sit at a typewriter and make things up,” he said semi-honestly of his second career as a novelist. “You know who I am,” he later assured Alison, lying through his teeth. “The stories just fell out of him,” said Alison to the padre, an attack masquerading as a tribute.
They’ve certainly got period details right. In flashbacks from 1960 to 1940, Wilson shed 20 years by the simple trick of letting her hair down. Ruth Wilson’s bewitching performance draws you back to an era when women concealed passion and pain beneath a starched exterior. And Glen feels authentically untrustworthy, if such a thing is possible. This may be partly down to that wraparound beard that seems to sprout from his actual mouth.
What we really need to discover is what made Alec tick. And there are other questions. How could Alec afford two homes? What manner of wife would swallow the manifest bilge that her husband must live in digs for 20 years and never once sleep at home? Why is it always men who need more than one marriage? Plus, is Fiona Shaw now condemned in perpetuity to play tight-lipped spy chiefs? (See also Killing Eve.)
It’s an intriguing scenario, seemingly yanked from the script of a wildly implausible soap. Is it cynical to hope that viewers, like all Alec’s wives and children, are not being strung along by a fiction?