Aidan McArdle

At the dinners in The Duchess (2008), Aidan McArdle’s Richard Brinsley Sheridan helps give Georgiana someone worth talking to. His scenes with Keira Knightley and Simon McBurney’s Charles Fox have the snap that much of Saul Dibb’s film lacks. We perked up in their company because the conversation let Georgiana be witty rather than simply unhappy. McArdle’s contribution is small, but it is a good indication of his value in an ensemble. Here, his timing is useful to the actors around him.

Early screen roles asked him to portray famous men, including Dudley Moore in Not Only But Always (2004), alongside Rhys Ifans, and Albert Einstein in E=mc² (2005). Television then gave him longer runs as Andy Doonan, opposite Olivia Colman in Beautiful People (2008–09), and the prosecutor Silvester in Garrow’s Law (2009–11). Comedy and cynical authority became useful outlets for his attention to speech and manner. Lord Loxley in Mr Selfridge (2014–15) continued the casting as men who expect to get their way.

Dibb’s film also shows why good supporting acting is not enough. The dinner scenes have energy; the central love affair has almost no heat, and the treatment of Georgiana’s life is too polite. McArdle cannot fix that with a supporting part. Nor should his contribution be inflated: Ralph Fiennes makes the greater impression. What McArdle does, with Knightley and McBurney, is give the social scenes some of the liveliness that the romance needed.

The succession of lawyers and aristocrats suggests a risk in his casting: employing him for the correct manner and leaving him little else to do. His work in comedy is a reason to resist that habit. Beautiful People offers a useful counterweight to the prosecutors and titled antagonists, and deserves a place beside them when considering his work. Another disagreeable lord would be no surprise; we would rather see him given more room to be funny.