A Passionate Woman Fails to Spark

With a title like A Passionate Woman (BBC1) and with Billie Piper, fresh from Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, in the title role, it seemed fair to expect the screen to steam up with some good old-fashioned post-war rumpy pumpy. But something about this doomed period romance failed to spark. It wasn’t Piper’s fault. She was the picture of let-me-at-’im libido the minute her dowdy Betty clapped eyes on hunky charmer Craze at the local dancehall.
We were in grim-up-North 1950s Leeds, a land of freezing flats,frustrated marriages and small-minded anti-Semitism.
So it was no wonder the rather too perfectly formed Craze (Theo James, with gym-buff body and perfect teeth – not really a 1950s look) caused something of a stir.
To the endlessly repeated refrain of old Johnny Mathis ditty A Certain Smile, Betty and Craze embarked on an affair we knew was ill-fated from the outset, given that he copped a bullet in the opening credits and the whole thing was told in flashback.
Blocking their route to happiness was the fact they were both trapped in entirely implausible marriages to people they didn’t like, let alone love.
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