Summer of Rockets has the three circles of a perfect BBC period drama Venn diagram.
There’s the Fifties setting with fruity voices and plenty of lipstick and hats (circle one), national treasures Timothy Spall and Keeley Hawes in the cast (circle two) and, in circle three, a script and direction from BBC darling Stephen Poliakoff.
Of all the dramas Poliakoff has created (Dancing on the Edge, Close to the Enemy) this is his most personal yet, a semi-autobiographical tale with a central character, Samuel Petrukhin, based on his own father, Alexander Poliakoff.
We first meet the Petrukhin family, all outsiders of a sort trying to fit into an unyielding 1958 British society. Inventor Samuel (Toby Stephens) was born in Russia but moved to the UK when he was eight and now runs a hearing-aid business.
He has taught himself to speak in a slightly affected RP accent, flaunts his shy British wife’s aristocratic lineage and fibs to people about the excellent vintage he’s brought from his wine “cellar” (“It’s more of a cupboard,” says his wife).
Then there’s Samuel’s unhappy daughter Hannah (Lily Sacofsky) who on her father’s insistence is getting ready to be “presented” at Buckingham Palace as a deb (1958 was the last year the Queen threw a debutantes’ ball before it was scrapped — as Princess Margaret put it: “Every tart from London was getting in”) but hates the etiquette classes he sends her to and is more preoccupied by news on the radio of nuclear bombs.
Then there’s little Sasha (the very sweet Toby Woolf), packed off to a cold British boarding school where the masters give him a hard time and the other kids don’t seem to like him.
But when Sasha wanders off on a trip to Royal Ascot and Kathleen Shaw (Keeley Hawes), the wife of an influential Tory MP, helps find him, the socially ambitious Petrukhin sees the opportunity for a friendship.
Not long after that Samuel and his business partner Courtney (Gary Beadle) notice their car being followed by suspicious-looking men in hats. Are they business rivals hoping to steal the patent for his new “locator device” or government spies? Most likely the latter.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Kathleen and her outwardly successful MP husband Richard (Linus Roache) appear to be having some problems of their own, though when Kathleen has a meltdown after a party conference it’s not clear what those problems are. We also briefly meet their friend Lord Wallington (Timothy Spall), who looks set to develop a larger presence in the coming episodes (because, well, it’s Timothy Spall).
At times the drama and script feel a little hammy — do the kerb crawling, cigarette-smoking men in hats need to make themselves quite so obvious? — and there’s some clunky exposition, but with typical skill Poliakoff also lays down some promisingly mysterious threads you’ll want to pull on.
It’s no coincidence that the best scenes feature Hawes, who has by now cornered the UK market for Buttoned Up Woman With A Secret roles. Hawes can convey more with the twitch of an eyelid than most actors could in a whole episode. I’ll be watching next week.
TV shows to watch in 2019
