Summer of Rockets review – Poliakoff has pulled it off at last!

This cold-war drama has Stephen Poliakoff’s trademark stilted dialogue, odd acting and overload of posh houses – but this time, I want to watch more

There is much to worry about in Summer of Rockets (BBC Two), Stephen Poliakoff’s latest drama. Will the posh Shaws turn up for the arriviste Petrukhin’s picnic? Will Petrukhin’s new invention save his business? Will his debutante daughter make it to Buckingham Palace on time? Will he ever find out who is following him? Will a nuclear weapon fall out of the sky? Do I even care? I think I do, actually. That is not often the case with a Poliakoff drama. Usually the characters are too chilly, too unsettling, with his strange, stilted dialogue in their mouths. But the Petrukhins seem warmer, and more engaging, than usual.

Perhaps that is because this drama is semi-autobiographical. It is 1957, and Petrukhin – like Poliakoff’s father – is a Russian Jew and maker of bespoke hearing aids. Winston Churchill is a customer, though not during the war in case Petrukhin – what with his Russian-ness – was bugging his ears. His outsider status is highlighted from the start. Petrukhin (Toby Stephens), and his family, as well as his righthand man Courtney Johnson (Gary Beadle), who is black, are questioned before they are admitted to the royal enclosure at Goodwood races. Once inside, they all get terrible looks. But then their son Sasha goes missing and one of the posh women (Keeley Hawes, magnificent as always) finds him. Petrukhin is thrilled to make her acquaintance, and that of her husband, the MP Richard Shaw.

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from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2VTD6jE