A few scenes from a favourite film, ‘The Ruling Class’, in which Daniel Tucker, obstreperous manservant (alias Alexei Kronstadt)— played by Arthur Lowe — to Jack, the recently acceded 14th Earl of Gurney, played by Peter O’Toole. In this segment, following Jack’s instruction to Tucker to destroy the Earls ceremonial robes — to the exasperation of Sir Charles Gurney who memorably states: Destroying property, all men are equal - you know what this means Claire? Hes not only mad, hes bolshy — Tucker advises Jack to be on his guard as the family are plotting to disinherit him. Ironically, however, Jack believes Tucker to be a paranoid schizophrenic for making such outrageous comments. Frustrated, Tucker sees Jack for the upper class shit he is and proceeds to get drunk, revealing that he has always been a secret one man socialist cell: “an anarchist, Trotskyist, Communist, revolutionary”. As he says: “The first thing an Englishman does, straight from his mother’s womb, is touch his forelock. That’s how they can tell the wrinkled little bastard’s English… But they don’t know about me, a lot they don’t know about Daniel Tucker!”
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 14:02:09 +0000
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