Harry Shearer as Richard Nixon. Picture from Sky Arts.

Originally published by L.S. Media. April 30th 2012.

L.S. Media Rating ****

Cast: Harry Shearer, Demetri Goritsas, Jeff Mash, Corey Johnson.

American politics is littered with moments at the Oval Office being governed and run by those that are easily lampooned, satirised and generally ill thought after their death. Perhaps in modern times none so more than Richard Millhouse Nixon, he even beats Presidents Reagan and Bush in terms of those that want to try to understand how he ticked, none so more than American comedian and professional Nixon impersonator Harry Shearer.

The latest play on the Sky Arts channel, which began with an absolute high point with David Tennant’s performance in Will Self’s play The Minority Character but took a bit of downward slide in the second play which starred the usually highly polished Sheila Hancock, returned to form with the sensational look at President Nixon’s time in the Oval Office.  This was done through observing the lesser known conversations he had with industrialists, his chief of staff and Henry Kissinger, portrayed with bundles of class by Henry Goodman, and the sheer lunacy that comes through Judith Owen’s brilliantly written script for Nixon’s The One.

Everyone has a view on Nixon, some hate him, some, bizarrely loved him, what you cannot argue with is the way he has been handled on celluloid by actors over the last two decades, from Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone’s damning version in Nixon to the rather distorted view of Frank Langella’s version in the film Frost/Nixon. Perhaps it takes a man who has genuinely got under the skin of the President to play him, warts and all, to show of the eccentric, the muddle-headedness, the potential, as Harry Shearer puts it, “the craziest m**********r ever to occupy high office.”

The script was taken from real meetings in the Oval Office and was shot accordingly as the bitterness and unbelievable rants that the man uttered were captured by the effective use of camera positions that were as if the technology existed for C.C.T.V cameras to capture every move, every nuance, every vile moment that he spoke. From ranting against black people, in which he claimed to love but who he believed would take 500 years to become true Americans and people, to the Jewish population who he believed ran the I. R.S. and who were after his good buddies, the television evangelist Billy Graham and Hollywood screen legend John Wayne and as a final insult to him himself.

Not for many years have the American people have had a President that caused so much trouble for its people but with Harry Shearer capturing the man in elegant dead pan style it shows that satire is alive and well and brilliantly captured on film. It takes a brave man to decry a public figure, even when he was alive Harry Shearer portrayed him on television, and this should serve as a warning to those seeking high office that no matter what you think, you will be judged long after you depart office, let’s hope Harry Shearer is around to capture it all.

Ian D. Hall