An Englishman In New York

The inspiration of the Sting song of the same name, An Englishman In New York is one of those rare jewels that appears in the Christmas viewing schedules and is truly must-see viewing amongst the turkeys.

A sequel to the superb 1975 ITV drama The Naked Civil Servant, which gave John Hurt his most celebrated role and confirmed his status as one of our most valued actors, this sequel cements the fact that amongst some of the larger than life thesps that we have (typically playing larger parts in the Harry Potter movies), Hurt is a quietly grafting journeyman who is able to embody an entirely flamboyant character with studied poise.

Quentin "Cottaging" Crisp (born Denis Charles Pratt) was predominantly a writer and raconteur who spent much of the twilight of his life in New York - indeed the first time I visited the city in late 1998 one of the highlights on the trip was watching (the then nearly 90) Crisp holding court in a Greenwich Village cafe. His status as a gay icon was delineated by his abject refusal to tone down any of his exhibitionist tendencies (part of the thrust of The Naked Civil Servant) and to remain flamboyant in every aspect of his life.

An Englishman In New York picks up the story as Crisp moves from London to New York in the early 1980's, where he is the doyen of the BoHo scene. Hurt is once again tremendous portraying the aging Crisp, with Swoosie Kurtz and Cynthia Nixon providing excellent support as two of the women in Crisp's bohemian life. Whilst it never reaches the heady brilliance of the original, it seems laughable that the BBC pitted the dreadful remake of The Day Of The Triffids against this in their Christmas scheduling, but should you have been suckered in by the hype and wound up missing An Englishman In New York, then the same-day DVD release serves as an opportunity for New Year's penitence.



Airs at 9pm on Monday 28th December 2009 on ITV1.
Released on DVD on 28th December 2009 by Momentum Pictures.

Written by Simon Cole.