Loving Miss Hatto

This was an interesting biopic, that showed what someone's love can drive them to.

Based on the true story of Joyce Hatto, a concert pianist, who became famous in her 70s after struggling for most of her life to make it in the classical world, but what later turned out to be all down to a fraud plot. The dramatisation saw how her husband, William Barrington-Coupe's love for his wife would see his determination to make her dream of being recognised for her talent by the classical world a reality by taking recordings from other pianists and tweaking them to sound like how she use to play before she was diagnosed with cancer.

This setting and the script by Victoria Wood, made it a very touching story and it easy for me to emphasis with Joyce and William. It also allowed me to see how they were drawn into making the fraudulent recordings and understand their motives behind doing it. This was done through showing Joyce's struggle to become well known through performing in her 20s, but suffered from terrible nerves and lack of confidence. Then when she does perform it was done in an exceptional standard.

William's support and determination also showed a great strength among the couple and it was good how the story was told mainly from his perspective. Then when the fraud was exposed 6 months after Joyce's death, William defended what they did and stated that Joyce wasn't involved at all int he fraud and thought that the recordings were hers. The dramatisation works well to display this by having Willliam talk to the ghost of Joyce and argue over whose fault it all was and then when he is visited by two ex-pupils of Joyce's and see how much they had faith in her, he decides to defend her honour. This brought I really heart-warming and emotional end to the story.

 Francesca Annis and Alfredo Molina were superb as Joyce and William and the chemistry between the two really worked. Maimie McCoy and Rory Kinnear also gave great performances as the younger versions of the couple.