It was speculated at one time that SPECTRE had masterminded the theft of the Goya painting, The Duke of Wellington, from the National Gallery, and that James Bond had tracked it down to the lair of Dr No on Crab Key, Jamaica.
The truth is stranger than fiction and the truth is no stranger to fiction as shown in THE DUKE, Roger Michell’s superbly rendered film of a most unlikely heist.
Jim Broadbent is Kempton Bunton, an auto didactic socialist who opposes much of what the Establishment imposes on the proletariat. In 1961, his main hobby horse is the abolition of television licenses, especially for old age pensioners and low income earners. When the Government announces it has paid 140,000 pounds he is outraged, calculating that amount would pay for a great many of the population with free television reception.
Then the Goya goes missing and Bunton is implicated.
Kempton sent ransom notes saying that he would return the painting on condition that the government invested more in care for the elderly. What happened next became the stuff of legend. Only 50 years later did the full story emerge, of an eccentric, good man, determined to change the world and save his marriage.
Broadbent is bloody marvellous as Bunton, the lovable, frustrating agitator and prolific unpublished playwright, as is Helen Mirren his wife, Dorothy. In fact, the entire cast serves the beautifully crafted script by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman excellently.
This is director Roger Michell’s last work and consistent with the excellence of his canon which includes Notting Hill, Venus and Tea With the Dames.
