The Human Body
This starry drama from Lucy Kirkwood is a period piece about the foundation of the NHS… and also a full-on homage to Noël Coward’s ‘Brief Encounter’. The year is 1948, and Iris (Keeley Hawes) is a doctor living in south Shropshire during the final months before the launch of the NHS. She’s also a Labour councillor, who travels to London once a week to serve as a parliamentary aide. Plus, she’s got domestic duties: times being what they are, she is expected to devote a seemly amount of attention to her daughter Laura and husband Julian (Tom Goodman-Hill) - an injured, embittered former navy doctor who is dubious about the government nationalising his practice. Genuinely believing in all these causes, Iris rises to them uncomplainingly. But her life is changed by a (what else?) brief encounter on a train, where she meets dashing minor-league Hollywood actor George (Jack Davenport), a local boy made good who has come home to visit his mother. Although there is a fair amount of scene-setting for the NHS side of the story, once George shows up it’s difficult to exaggerate the extent to which the first half of ‘The Human Body’ feels like a stage remake of ‘Brief Encounter’. While Iris and George have different biographical details to the film’s Laura and Alec, their love unfolds similarly. Moreover, Michael Longhurst’s production plays explicit homage by using live black and white video to film the couple during their scenes together, their damnably attractive faces blown up on