KEY POINTS:
The minds of television programmers, like that of God, are inscrutable. But this does not stop us indulging in speculation. Why, for example, did TV One screen The Diary of Anne Frank in its Brit drama slot last night, early in January?
This seemed strange from a channel
that usually shows no shame about the layers of dust it blows off quality British dramas left languishing on the shelf until finally they find some late-night home years after screening in their place of origin. Last night's offering came immediately after airing in its homeland.
Not that we're not grateful, the no doubt few of us who switched on the box and were delivered what will probably be one of the finest offerings in the slot all year.
This version was notable for the fact that writer Deborah Moggach won the right to use Anne's actual words, a privilege she certainly did not squander.
The diary is said to be one of the most widely read works of non-fiction and has had numerous screen adaptations. Against the odds, this BBC version breathed new life into the dreadful ironies of the Jewish girl's words - that final, declared belief in the good in humankind - penned during her two-year, ultimately doomed confinement in a crowded attic, hiding from the Nazis.
This was thanks largely, of course, to the superb performance of its young lead, Ellie Kendrick, who uttered Anne's words with the immediacy of the gifted young diary writer pouring her thoughts and feelings effortlessly on to the page. From her first sally - "It seems to me that later on, neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the chatterings of a 13-year-old schoolgirl" - it was apparent Kendrick would make familiar poignancies newly heart-stopping.
The only quibble was that the cast seemed so overwhelmingly British in manner that it took time to be convinced the characters were Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam.
All but one or two did a sterling job of creating that claustrophobic world of the hidden annexe, with its suffering and terrors, petty feuds and incredible courage. Particularly strong was Nicholas Farrell as the tetchy, lovelorn Albert Dussel. Tamsin Greig, however, played Anne's mother as so bleached out she was practically indistinct.
But it was a drama to stop you in your tracks, capturing the essence of the girl whose surname seems so terribly apt: the energetic whirl of her intelligence and hormones, the ability to find humour in suffering, to live within the limits of her world without going mad, and equally, the insufferable adolescent who knows it all.
This was a rare chance for a new generation to learn of the Holocaust through Anne's story. And perhaps, as the Gaza Strip burns yet again, it was also a timely reminder for us all of some of the reasons Israel feels compelled to defend itself so aggressively.
