Einstein and Eddington
Shock horror, there was actually something on terrestrial TV in prime time on Saturday night that I wanted to watch!
I enjoyed Einstein and Eddington enormously, and I learnt something (even if my oh-I-see! moment when Eddington was demonstrating relativity to his sister and Frank Dyson using the tablecloth, a loaf of bread and an apple did make me feel rather like Archchancellor Ridcully being lectured by Ponder Stibbons. "You're going to start talking about the Universe being a rubber sheet with weights on it again, aren't you?"...)
It was thoughtful, bittersweet and extremely well acted. I really enjoyed seeing David Tennant cast rather against recent type as a buttoned-up, repressed Edwardian who has immense difficulty putting his feelings into words [subsequent edit: given that Tenth Doctor finds it incredibly difficult to put any real emotions into words either, that's not very well expressed. I think what I was trying to get at was that while both the Doctor and Hamlet try to get round overwhelming emotion by talking endlessly, if not to the point, Eddington in the grip of overpowering emotion was lost for words altogether] (though, rather Doctor-like, his enthusiasms - for cycling and for high-level physics, in this case - bubbled over despite him); his unspoken love for his friend William Marston, and overwhelming grief at Marston's death at Ypres, brought a huge lump to my throat. Andy Serkis was having a great time as Einstein. Tennant and Serkis between them carried the lead roles beautifully, balancing these two very different characters with their parallel stories and beliefs. And Jim Broadbent is always good value. I also thought Rebecca Hall did a lot with a potentially quite slight part as Eddington's sister; I've seen one or two rather slighting comments about the roles women got to play in the drama, but I liked the way that Winifred was portrayed as perfectly intelligent in her own right (and was recognised as such by her brother), and also her strength of character both in going to Berlin with the Society of Friends to help at the end of the war, and the fact that she simply told him she was going rather than asking permission or deferring to him (and that he totally accepted this - there was never any suggestion Eddington regarded women as anything other than his equal, unlike many of the male scientists portrayed).
Even the Resident Geek, who is often a bit sniffy about history-of-science-dramas, enjoyed it, though there were occasional "it's not quite as simple as that" mutterings from the Theoretical Physicists' Corner - but fair do's, it was fundamentally a character drama. It did that very well, creating a real sense of the courage it took (contrary to popular belief at the time) to be a pacifist in WWI Britain, and to hold to basic principles of truth in science when most of the Royal Society was ready to pillory any of their number corresponding with a German scientist. The attack on a German bookseller's family in Cambridge was both shocking and thought-provoking (sadly, we haven't entirely moved on in that respect...) and I was genuinely moved by Eddington and his sister's unwaveringly humanistic and brave response to shelter them.
Yay, there was a crucial bit part for the University Library! (and librarian in obligatory bun and long skirt). Resident Geek and I had fun afterwards freeze-framing, and dusting off my German, to work out which of Einstein's seminal 1905 papers she'd managed to dig out. And a starring (ho ho) role for an orrery. Now that's not something you see every day.
And if Wikipedia's Eddington entry is to be believed (and most of it is backed up by the DNB, though not this bit), even the long-distance cycling obsession was canonical (the Eddington Number!), which I found oddly cheering and very sweet.
I enjoyed Einstein and Eddington enormously, and I learnt something (even if my oh-I-see! moment when Eddington was demonstrating relativity to his sister and Frank Dyson using the tablecloth, a loaf of bread and an apple did make me feel rather like Archchancellor Ridcully being lectured by Ponder Stibbons. "You're going to start talking about the Universe being a rubber sheet with weights on it again, aren't you?"...)
It was thoughtful, bittersweet and extremely well acted. I really enjoyed seeing David Tennant cast rather against recent type as a buttoned-up, repressed Edwardian who has immense difficulty putting his feelings into words [subsequent edit: given that Tenth Doctor finds it incredibly difficult to put any real emotions into words either, that's not very well expressed. I think what I was trying to get at was that while both the Doctor and Hamlet try to get round overwhelming emotion by talking endlessly, if not to the point, Eddington in the grip of overpowering emotion was lost for words altogether] (though, rather Doctor-like, his enthusiasms - for cycling and for high-level physics, in this case - bubbled over despite him); his unspoken love for his friend William Marston, and overwhelming grief at Marston's death at Ypres, brought a huge lump to my throat. Andy Serkis was having a great time as Einstein. Tennant and Serkis between them carried the lead roles beautifully, balancing these two very different characters with their parallel stories and beliefs. And Jim Broadbent is always good value. I also thought Rebecca Hall did a lot with a potentially quite slight part as Eddington's sister; I've seen one or two rather slighting comments about the roles women got to play in the drama, but I liked the way that Winifred was portrayed as perfectly intelligent in her own right (and was recognised as such by her brother), and also her strength of character both in going to Berlin with the Society of Friends to help at the end of the war, and the fact that she simply told him she was going rather than asking permission or deferring to him (and that he totally accepted this - there was never any suggestion Eddington regarded women as anything other than his equal, unlike many of the male scientists portrayed).
Even the Resident Geek, who is often a bit sniffy about history-of-science-dramas, enjoyed it, though there were occasional "it's not quite as simple as that" mutterings from the Theoretical Physicists' Corner - but fair do's, it was fundamentally a character drama. It did that very well, creating a real sense of the courage it took (contrary to popular belief at the time) to be a pacifist in WWI Britain, and to hold to basic principles of truth in science when most of the Royal Society was ready to pillory any of their number corresponding with a German scientist. The attack on a German bookseller's family in Cambridge was both shocking and thought-provoking (sadly, we haven't entirely moved on in that respect...) and I was genuinely moved by Eddington and his sister's unwaveringly humanistic and brave response to shelter them.
Yay, there was a crucial bit part for the University Library! (and librarian in obligatory bun and long skirt). Resident Geek and I had fun afterwards freeze-framing, and dusting off my German, to work out which of Einstein's seminal 1905 papers she'd managed to dig out. And a starring (ho ho) role for an orrery. Now that's not something you see every day.
And if Wikipedia's Eddington entry is to be believed (and most of it is backed up by the DNB, though not this bit), even the long-distance cycling obsession was canonical (the Eddington Number!), which I found oddly cheering and very sweet.