There are always three paths for child actors. There is the fading into obscurity where you don’t actually know if they existed in the first place; just robots created by the Disney Company. There is also the crack route, otherwise known as the ‘Lindsey Loh-lane,” where the pressure of fame causes them to turn to booze and drugs. Then there is a lighter path where the child star naturally progresses into adulthood with talent and a fruitful career in acting. You’d be forgiven, for a second, in thinking that Daniel Radcliffe was hovering down the first two. But once you watch his new drama A Young Doctor’s Notebook, you may change your mind
Series One hit our television screens last year boasting a black comedy. Hailed by many critics as a superb show, the first instalment was brief but fantastic. Hamm and Radcliffe are two sides of the same coin, managing perfectly to showcase different ages of the same man. On the Hamm side, here is an experienced man whose addictions and troubles have finally caught up with him. Addicted to morphine and arrested for stealing it from the hospital he works in, Hamm adds the earnest need to help himself and his sorrow for what he has done. He has wisdom although he is not altogether wise. Hamm plays the character well, removing himself from previous roles and creating something new, likeable and hateful at the same time.