Micro wave

The BBC4 computer season's flagship comedy drama Micro Men was the latest in a long line of biopics of British cultural figures from Tony Hancock to Barbara Cartland that they've produced. Some have been terrible (the Mary Whitehouse one in particular was shameful, patronising it's odious subject matter as if no-one had learned anything from her reign of terror, and Lindsay Duncan's miscasting as Thatcher successfully scuppered that one) and others brilliant (Anne Reid was superb and unexpectedly moving as Barbara Cartland and Andrea Riseborough made a much better stab at Thatcher in The Long Walk to Finchley).

This one was a slightly odd comedy drama - odd in that it wasn't actually funny apart from a couple of scenes (the mafia-style oxtail soup in a transport caff scene being particularly hilarious) or all that dramatic. Alexander Armstrong was amusing but never very convincing as Clive Sinclair, his lousy rubber scalp and stick-on hair made him look like a bad comedy sketch character rather than the central figure in a film-length drama. Martin Freeman had the much easier job of being a bit Martin Freemanish. Rather as with the Whitehouse one I did wonder why this had to be a comedy - Sinclair is famously odd and the C5 is a great disaster, but I'm sure there was more going on with him than shouting and mispronouncing the word 'logo'. It was as if they had gone with the most superficial version of him and hadn't bothered burrowing beneath that.

That said, it was enjoyable and interesting, very funny in a couple of places and another successful BBC4 drama made on 50p. I hope they keep on making these, they'll never run out of subjects, and hit-or-miss as they are, they are always worth watching. I'd love to see one about Coe and Ovett next, but I'm guessing it's hard to re-stage two Olympics on a shoestring.