Any Human Heart

A brand new period drama, the life of Logan Mountstuart through from the 20s to 80s starring Matthew MacFayden, or in other words, heaven.
The story follows the doings of Logan through memories of an old man, Jim Broadbent, first through the eyes of the dashing (he reminds me beautiful hybrid of Benedict Cumberbatch and Nicholas Hoult) student reading English, Sam Claflin. Desperate to lose his virginity he sleeps with the woman who becomes his best friend’s wife, foreshadowing a life of secrecy and betrayal. Logan then falls desperately in love with ‘Land’ who does not reciprocate his feelings and leaves him when he asks her to marry him. Logan marries a rich girl who he does not love and then of course lives to regret it.

Here we see life as Logan Mountstuart through the gorgeous Matthew MacFayden. I do believe that Matthew MacFayden is secretly a time traveller from the 1920’s he is just perfect in this role, although perhaps not as good looking as Claflin he is three times as loveable, (although I expect I am quite biased by my obsession with Pride and Prejudice and my love for MacFayden’s Mr Darcy). MacFayden plays a man lost and tired by family life and the in laws and retreats to journalism to escape, where he meets the beautiful Freya, Hayley Atwell, and again falls deeply in love. Neglecting his wife, the pair become inseparable, ‘time away from Freya is time lost’ and inevitably Freya falls pregnant just before Logan leaves for a month in Spain and the first hour and a half episode finishes.

I was very impressed, though the technicalities of the story seem predictable, unhappy husband has an affair and his mistress becomes pregnant, its refreshingly different, flicking back to the old and elusive Logan  Mountstuart, alone and reliving the moments of time gone past. The casting is brilliant and each part portrayed wonderfully. The choice of three different actors, four if you count Logan as a blue eyed child, was a move well played, and highlights the different selves of Logan and reflectively every person that has every lived.

I will certainly be tuning in next week.

Watch Any Human Heart now on 4oD or 9pm Sundays on Channel 4.

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