Summer of Rockets

Review

by Ben Soton

Class, Race and anti-Semitism set to the backdrop of the Cold-War underline BBC2’s latest Wednesday night drama.

Summer of Rockets gives an insight into 1950s Britain centred on the Petrukhin family. Samuel Petrukhin (played by Toby Stevens) runs a business making hearing aids and is in the process of developing what he calls the staff locator, an early form of pager. Meanwhile he and his wife are keen to get their daughter introduced into upper class circles. In the first episode she is introduced to the Queen as a debutante.

Their Russian Jewish ancestry holds them back however, it was this that prevented him from fitting Churchill’s hearing aid during the war. Meanwhile Petrukhin insists on arriving at Ascot in a Rover 90, a car more associated with suburbia than a stately home, whilst the other participants drive Daimlers or Bentleys. He continues to turn heads when he brings his West-Indian foreman, Courtney Johnson, to the event. Johnson, played by former EastEnders actor Gary Beadle is unperturbed by the hostile stares from other racegoers. The idea is that Petrukhin, who still speaks with a slight Russian ascent, does not quite fit into upper class society. It is therefore the job of his children to complete the process.

There is a twist to the story when the Petrukhins are befriended by Catherine Shaw (played by Keighley Hawes) and her husband Richard. Richard Shaw is a Tory MP suffering from dementia. Keighley Hawes, who has over the last 20 years played a number of well-heeled figures, takes to the role well. In recent years she has appeared in a number of mid-20th century dramas such as The Durrells and Traitors. Petrukhin is asked to spy on Shaw, which he initially sees as a breach of trust but soon changed his mind when access to government contracts is threatened.

There are a number of potential twists to the drama. Petrukhin’s daughter Hannah is not really interested in the debutante scene and is more concerned about the threat of nuclear war.  This is the era of the Cold War. Are the intelligence operatives who recruit Petrukhin as a spy really who they say they are?

Summer of Rockets, which is loosely based on the life off the director Stephen Poliakov’s father, is one of my must views. Although the name of the drama alludes to the nuclear arms or space race there is little reference to actual rockets so far. Unlike Channel 4’s Traitors it contains little of that drama’s virulent anti-Communism. As a result, it is more a story about better-off immigrants gaining acceptance within upper-class society than about the international situation at the time.