What a view | The Singapore Grip vilifies the British expats who partied while Asia went to war
- Based on a J.G. Farrell novel, the story takes place in early 1940s Singapore against the spectre of Japanese invasion
- After airing in Britain, it was decried as a ‘kick in the teeth’ for Asian characters
When shown recently on British television, The Singapore Grip provoked much beating of the anti-racism drum, with pressure groups griping that it was “rose-tinted” history and “a kick in the teeth” for the Asian characters shamelessly exploited by domineering imperialists. Which rather misses the point.
Based on the novel by Booker Prize-winning author J.G. Farrell, this adaptation of The Singapore Grip may feature only a single Asian character with any depth. But that’s all it takes to expose the ex-public school duffers in tin hats who regard war as merely “a spot of action” and for whom “the honour of the British Empire” is of paramount importance – and to hell with the natives on whose backs they’ve built their mansions.
Their garden fêtes, hired jazz bands and cocktails on the veranda serve to bury the Brits, not to praise them.
The six-part series (showing now on BBC First Asia, via TVB) begins in 1941 as the spectre of Japanese invasion creeps up on a contemptuous expatriate community, its haughtiness typified by a scheming David Morrissey as an avaricious, bombastic businessman.
Compassionate new arrival Matthew Webb (Luke Treadaway) is disgusted by the colonial superiority complex (and later by an appalling absence of military leadership) and it’s his relationship with semi-perpetual refugee Vera Chiang (an indefatigable Elizabeth Tan) that throws the expats’ insufferable demeanour into sharpest relief.
Filmed in Penang and Kuala Lumpur to evoke the Lion City of old, the tale vilifies those who partied while Asia burned. Dismissing a marauding army thus: “The trouble with the Japanese is they eat too much fish,” was never going to be a winning strategy.