The first episode finished with Logan Mountstuart (Matthew Macfayden) leaving to be a journalist in the Spanish Civil War on the news that his mistress Freya (Hayley Atwell) is pregnant.
Whilst there he runs into old friend Ernest Hemingway (Julian Ovenden) and obtains some paintings by Miro that he gives to his friend Ben (Ed Stoppard), an aspiring art dealer. He goes through an acrimonious divorce from Lottie (Emerald Fennell), and moves into suburbia with his Freya, and their daughter Stella. It is not just Logan who is facing problems of the heart, his old friend Peter's (Samuel West) infidelity to his wife of many years Tess (Holliday Grainger), leads to her committing suicide and in turn, Peter's conversion to Catholicism and release of a bestselling novel Guilt. After being a journalist, he is recruited by Ian Fleming (Tobias Menzies) into naval intelligence, where he posted to observe the Duke of Windsor (Tom Hollander) and Wallis Simpson (Gillian Anderson) in the Bahamas. Yet he is thrown out when he refuses to support the Duke when he tries to frame an innocent man for the murder of a local businessman. Logan is then sent into Switzerland to pose as a trap for the Nazis, but he is caught and thrown in prison. When he returns, he discovers Freya and Stella have been killed in a rocket attack.
Some years later, Logan is now living in America, working for Ben and married to an American, Allanah (Natasha Little) and her daughter Gail (Skye Bennett). However, his somewhat staid lifestyle and lack of inspiration has led him to turn to alcohol and in turn to therapy with Dr Bryne (Richard Schiff). On a visit to London, he then embarks on yet another affair, this time with Peter's third wife Gloria (Kim Cattrall). When he returns to New York, Allanah leaves him for another man. Yet soon, Lionel, Logan's son from his marriage to Lottie, turns up with a new name and with a band in order to find success in America. Tragedy strikes again when Lionel dies of a drug overdose, and Lottie blames her ex-husband. Logan responds by embarking on a love affair with Monday (Lydia Wilson), his son's girlfriend and a minor, leaving him open to prosecution. Ben advises him to flee the country.
More years have passed, Logan (now played by Jim Broadbent) lives a frugal existence in a basement flat in London, which he purchased when his mother died. Gloria, now divorced from both Peter and an Italian count, returns to him, dying from cancer and spends the last few days of her life with him. As Logan moves on from the loss of a dear friend, and the news that Ben is suffering from cancer, he too finds himself in hospital after he is hit by a truck when leaving follows outside the house where he once lived with Freya. Logan is devastated by the news that Ben has died whilst he's been in hospital and is left with little chance of earning any more money. Whilst he makes do, while leaving on a diet of dog food stew, he discovers the Socialist Patient's Collective, believing that it is to help improve patient care in England. What it actually is is a left-wing organisation working to free the Baader-Mainhof gang. When Logan discovers this, he quits the group and moves to the house in France that an old poet friend left for him in his will. Whilst living there, he meets a wealthy divorcee, Gabrielle Dupetit (Valerie Kaprisky), who reminds him very much of Freya. News soon meets him that Peter too has passed away, whilst researching for his new novel, and as the last one now alive, Logan gets rid of his plans for a novel, and decides to spend his time writing a memoir, based around the women he has loved; Tess, Land, Lottie, Freya, Gail, Gloria and Gabrielle.
Any Human Heart was stunning. A roller coaster-ride of emotions accompanied each episode, as the fine performances pushed the story onward. Whilst it is like Forrest Gump in that it is hard to imagine that one man could have played an important part in all these social movements, the backdrop of these events makes Logan's own story the more interesting.
I mentioned in my last post how much I adore the performances of the ensemble cast, and this is not diminished in the other episodes. Matthew Macfayden is wonderful as the imprisoned and heartbroken Mountstuart, who attempts to find solace in alcohol and women. Jim Broadbent plays Logan in the final years of his life and was remarkable detailing Logan's decline from a man who is still very much the man he was in his younger years, just with less money and less hair, to an elderly, somewhat frail man.
Other good performances come from Hayley Atwell as Freya, Tom Hollander as the annoying and cruel Duke of Windsor, and most of all from Kim Cattrall as Gloria. I'd only ever associated Cattrall with the few Sex & The City episodes I'd seen, and she surprised me with her wonderful performance as Gloria, who goes from a vivacious and flirty women to one who is very, very ill. I also got a bit of a chick out of seeing Richard Schiff, who I adore as Toby in The West Wing, playing Logan's American psychologist-who would appear to be a bit of a fraud (when Logan steals a look at his notes it is merely doodles) but perhaps represents the idea that the best form of treatment could be having someone to talk to, about anything.
Channel 4 has really surprised me with this and Pillars of the Earth, and I hope that more good dramas come from them in 2011.
