REVIEW
From The British Medical Journal (BMJ), 2005;330:1090 (7 May),
doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7499.1090
House
Hallmark Channel, Sundays at 9 pm and Mondays at 1 am
www.hallmarkchannel.co.uk Currently showing in the US on Fox
www.fox.com/house/
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars
By James Owen Drife, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, Leeds
At only 45, Hugh Laurie is well on the way to becoming a national
treasure. His credentials are impeccable. Old Etonian, member of a
losing Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race crew, hilarious portrayer of upper
class twits in Blackadder. And in the 1990s, playing Bertie Wooster to
Stephen Fry's Jeeves, he was lovable Englishness personified.
So when the BMJ was sent preview tapes of his new show on a satellite
channel, I was looking forward to a cheerful evening. OK, it was a US
series, and OK, he was playing a doctor, but the theme would surely be
Gussie Fink-Nottle meets Malibu Beach, and I was going to enjoy it.
Never very adept with the video player, I watched the first few minutes
with no sound. First surprise. This was Laurie unshaven, in 101
Dalmatians mode. Remember how scary he was as Cruella de Ville's
henchman, intent on drowning those puppies? Then I mastered the remote.
Second surprise. He had an American accent.
I sat mesmerised by the transformation. It was as if your best mate had
changed sex. He seemed to be doing it awfully well but what would the
Americans make of it? The third surprise came as I actually listened to
the words. Boy, was he being rude.
But not in a Graham Norton-style sexual innuendo way. His lines were
cynical, clever, and hurtful. He was like Humphry Bogart playing Philip
Marlowe but without the niceness. By way of explanation, his character,
Dr House, is in constant pain and walks with a stick (very
convincingly)—the result of damn fool colleagues' failure to diagnose
a thrombosis.
Gregory House is a brilliant diagnostician who regularly solves cases
that leave ordinary doctors baffled. He heads a team of three good
looking young MDs of mixed gender and ethnicity, including a floppy
haired Englishman who says at one point, "Actually, I'm Australian."
House snaps back: "You put the Queen on your money. You're British."
The plots are complex, drawn from the smallest print in the largest
medical textbooks. Differential diagnoses of mind-boggling obscurity are
hurled back and forth without a hint of irony among the frowning team
until House stops them with another flash of grim insight.
Occasionally the jargon is clarified for the viewer, who doesn't really
want explanations. Watching Miss Marple or Midsomer Murders we soon lose
track of the details, preferring to rely on the detective to sort it all
out. The difference here is that even at the very end, House never
smiles. "Humanity," he says, "is overrated."
He belongs to a long tradition of cantankerous heroes, going back to
Ironside, Dirty Harry, and, before them, Sherlock Holmes (who was of
course modelled on a medical teacher). UK viewers will hear echoes of
Sir Lancelot Spratt, though House is more shocking: "Treating illness is
why we became doctors. Treating patients is actually what makes most
doctors miserable."
Not a good role model, then, for today's new doctors, educated to be
touchy-feely people persons. Or are we getting it slightly wrong?
Medical schools are starting to wonder if the anti-Spratt pendulum has
swung too far. They are beginning to suspect that a profession may need
a few brilliant but difficult people.
Believing as I do that politeness costs nothing, why didn't I hate the
show? Mainly because it makes no claim to unmask reality. Created by a
team of non-medical writers (with diligent researchers, clearly), it
sets its crusty hero amid a caring team and gives him all the best
lines. To emphasise that this is unreal, the camera occasionally zooms
inside the patient's body, letting us see neurones at work.
But, like so many top-class US series, this is fantasy with a knowing
edge. It is a rebellion against blandness—ratings were tepid until
House was scheduled immediately after American Idol, a talent show in
which Britain's Simon Cowell lacerates wannabe pop stars. Verbal
brutality sells these days.
Doctors may well enjoy watching a stubbly, tieless consultant who fights
with hospital management (and wins), challenges patients to sue him if
they dare, and unleashes vitriolic sarcasm on a trendy mum who refuses
to have her child vaccinated. Laurie's father, a Scot, was a general
practitioner in Oxford (and nothing like House, of course) but Hugh
thinks Dad would have liked the show.
It is a hit in the US—as good as Desperate Housewives, says the
Washington Post. Umpteen episodes have been ordered and Laurie, having
pulled out of the next Superman film, is working endless 16-hour days.
The accent is flawless but hard work: "Saying something like `coronary
artery´ gives me a nosebleed. I have to lie down in a dark room for 20
minutes."
Perhaps, like Conan Doyle, he will tire of his creation before the
public does. Or a reputed £240 000 an episode may keep him going.
Either way, it's good to see him doing well. Being a national treasure
in two countries is pretty cool, even for an Old Etonian.
barbara