Tom Hollander makes a dazzling Truman Capote – but it's the fantasy that's truly seductive

Telegraph

5 hours ago

Single-sex education was not for me. I've published a 150,000-word memoir on the subject of how and why I became a poker champion, but I can sum that book up in two sentences: 'I wanted to meet boys. Then I met some.'
Spending 13 years in an all-girls' school, I moved towards boys like a plant looking for light. And, like a plant, I was prepared to grow up twisted. (Plus, I'm riddled with greenfly.) I didn't yearn for romance, especially, just male energy. Or male lack of energy; both are great. Boys want to run around, playing games and laughing and throwing things. As they get older, they'll do almost anything for a quiet life. The combination is hugely appealing. If you find it in a woman, that's the absolute bingo. But it's annoyingly rare; men tend to be like that by default.
Women have too pronounced a guilt mechanism either for mindless game-playing or a quiet life. It kicks in early. I remember the era when I was still playing hide-and-seek or looking up rude words in the dictionary, and eyes started to roll around me. 'Oh, Victoria,' they began to imply. 'Can't you grow up? Cecilia's got an idea for a new diet we could all go on. Jemima might have depression. Nobody's counting to 20 and looking for you behind a cupboard.'
Did boys think like that? I always reckoned not.
As for a quiet life, the evidence was that girls moved towards emotional confrontation and stress. It can't have been an accident every day. That lessens with age – older women feel more anger, while having fewer rows – but the guilt mechanism increases. There is no peace. Women might think they want a bit of calm and quiet, but the second their bum hits the sofa cushion, they leap up shouting 'Ooh I totally forgot to send that email / buy that present / defrost that stew / learn Japanese. Back in a minute.'
Released from school, I hurried to an overwhelmingly male-dominated college, then became a stand-up comic, then started playing poker. Thus, I barely met another woman for about ten years.
These days, I have some close female friends, but no 'gang' of girls at all. And that's a pity, because middle-aged women are terrific. Guilt-ridden, over-burdened and struggling to relax, but still more fun at 45 than they were at 15. I need a gang but don't know how to come by it – especially because I, too, am preoccupied with the endless to-do list of life. I can't join a book group, the bathroom needs grouting!
I was thinking about this while watching Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, which was released last year on Disney+. It's the trueish story of a group of wealthy New York socialites who befriended the writer Truman Capote and then fell out with him.
This is the long-awaited sequel to Feud: Bette and Joan, a great treat of 2017 with Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as her rival Joan Crawford. That delicious series won many awards, but the makers didn't come back with a new story until 2024. Why not? Nobody really knows. There was Covid, of course. And there was an attempt at Feud: Charles and Diana but that was abandoned, perhaps because the material had been so comprehensively mined by other shows.
The tale of Truman Capote and his haute couture frenemies seems a much better idea. Nobody needs to see a Lady Di lookalike finding that Fred and Gladys bracelet for the millionth time – and the ongoing generational trauma makes that all, still, too sad. This story feels fresher and spicier. Two episodes in, I'm enjoying it tremendously.
There's a typically dazzling central performance from Tom Hollander as Capote (rarely has an actor combined so much charisma with so little vanity), Naomi Watts is magnificent as Babe Paley, and the glittery, beautiful roster of star cameos (Demi Moore, Calista Flockhart, Molly Ringwald) is as tempting as a box of New Berry Fruits.
But an incalculable part of the appeal, for me, is the fantasy of 'ladies who lunch'. There they are, day after day in the same sumptuous restaurant: impeccably dressed, sipping white Burgundy and swapping vicious gossip. It looks idyllic.
Can it be real? I bet it isn't. The fantasy is to be so rich, and so well staffed, that there's nothing to do but eat poached salmon and get your nails done. I expect nobody lives like that really. They'd just feel constantly busy and stressed with the whole project of employing other people to do the stuff – to clean the pools and drive the cars and walk the dogs and tailor the clothes and train the children; there'd be endless hiring and firing and worrying and lawyers. Lauren Bezos's wedding looked like an absolute admin nightmare.
And yet, this show offers the traditional vision of rich married women with endless time for opulent lunches with gossipy friends. They walk their glossy horses down dappled avenues, hand the reins to obedient stable boys and snip a few flowers from the garden. The programme shows us bastard husbands, terminal illness and social shame, but I find it hard to sympathise because I'm so damn jealous of the free time.