Apart from the WW1 battle stuff I found it interesting and, in the case of John George Boorman very, very sad. My grandfather was in the trenches in France and was invalided out of the army in 1917 because he had been gassed, something that caused his death 13 years later. My mother always said, very bitterly, that war had robbed her of the father she had before he went away. She said he was never the same man, either mentally or physically, after he came home.
Having had cataract operations in the last two years, I cringed at the description of how it was in 1896! It made me very glad of the age I have had the good fortune to be born in .... in spite of everything at the moment! My cataracts were posterior ones too.
I agree that DW's "jokes" were annoying. Actually, apart from the rather laboured teasing of his mother, I would call it smutty innuendo rather than jokes and that should have no place in WDYTYA. Apart from that, I did like him as a person, coming across as very different from his stage persona. There was no luvvie emoting, no constant reaction of "WOW!" to everything, just quiet, intelligent interest it all ..... apart from the smut now and again.
|