Jon Cocks

'Late Night' was greater than the sum of its parts, not that the parts were bad. When I saw Emma Thompson was to play late-night TV talk host Kathryn Newbury on US TV, I knew I had to see it. No one does the world-weary blank stare like Thompson. I was not disappointed. I knew MIndy Kaling had worked as a writer on 'The Office', so the premise of her character Molly Patel joining the writing team at a struggling TV variety show fronted by Thompson held promise. With happy memories of 'Morning Glory', I went in hoping that Emma Thompson would do for 'Late Night' what Harrison Ford did for 'Morning Glory'. No such fireworks ensued, but Thompson gives us a hard-boiled network survivor, whose emotional vulnerability does not emerge until into the second act, when the number one up-and-comer, Daniel Tennant (Ike Barinholtz), a white hetero motormouth from standup-comedy-land looks set to take her job. The supporting cast of all-male white writers entertain as an ensemble, with Reid Scott, as Tom, the monologue writer, having space to evolve into a sympathetic character from the WASP-y narcissist we meet in the initial office sequence. John Lithgow, as Walter, Kathryn's husband, creates a memorable portrait of an ageing, fading man of substance in his limited screen time. When Kathryn is told her long run on TV is to end, there is little doubt how the story would play out, but in its journey it gave us two well-rounded female characters making a quite a few valid points about the white-male-dominated world of late night TV, and by extension, of societal power and influence. It is well worth the journey.