Monday 10 September 2012

The Scapegoat

This was a one-off drama, centring around John Standing, played by Matthew Rhys, who meets his body double, Johnny Spence, also played by Rhys, and is forced into taking on Johnny's life leading to fatal consequences.
The concept is interesting and it did make me wonder what I would do in the situation, although the likelihood of it happening is very rare and the only reason I could think why they were so identical was either they were twins separated at birth or just something else, but it was never clarified. This is because lookalikes are usually going to be a little bit different physically as well as in their personality. It's interesting to see the good effect that the nice character of John has on Johnny's disconnected family. And with this in mind, I felt that the way the story ended was justified.

I can understand the appeal that the new and rich lifestyle that probably movitated, the man with nothing, John's actions, but I wasn't sure about how easy it seemed for him to just fit into the family. Also he didn't seem to give a thought to Johnny and where he was or when he would turn up again. Maybe this would have been helped if it had been a few episodes instead of a feature-length one.

I think that Matthew Rhys gave a good performance by displaying the clear differences between the two men and even though Andrew Scott's and Sheridan Smith's characters, Paul and Nina Spence, were more on the back seat they still made a good impact.

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