In The Handyman, the crime (participation in the massacre of 817 Jews in 1941) is a good deal less subtly monstrous, but arriving at justice is still potentially a tricky business because of the 55-year time lag. The accused is Romka Kozachenko (fine Frank Finlay), an elderly Ukrainian odd-job man who, since coming to England in 1947, has lived as the employee and dear friend of a family of well-heeled Sussex Catholics. The Army Major father, whom he met in a POW camp in Rimini and who eased his co- religionists entry into Britain, is now dead. Its the daughter, Cressida (Kate Lynn-Evans), and Julian (Hugh Bonneville), her impatient, gas-prone derivative-trader husband, whose protected, opera-going world is blasted apart by the arrival of the war-crimes squad. In fact, the guilty or not-guilty question, with the legal and psychological issues that arise from the lengthy gap in time, arent really the dramas chief concern. The two Ukrainian witnesses (fellow soldier and a nun), whose concurring separate evidence we hear during the investigation, have no illicit personal reasons for falsely incriminating Romka. More important, I believe, is what the upheaval exposes about the value systems of the people surrounding the elderly Ukrainian. Here, though, as with Harwoods previous play, an excellent subject is often crudely dramatised, a fact which Christopher Morahans production fails to disguise. This is particularly the case with the daughter Cressida. Her increasingly unenviable role is to fulfil the prediction voiced by Frances Hunts somewhat creepy solicitor that war-crimes investigations will be a red rag to the Holocaust-deniers. In the final dismayingly melodramatic moments, the mental strain unhinges Cressida, who effectively joins these nutters. Ones objection is not that the pressure couldnt cause this to happen, but that her collapse is handled with such a point-making lack of subtlety. Given the shocking behaviour of the war-time Pope, its understandable that Harwood should have chosen to make the family Catholic and he is careful to discriminate between good and bad members of that faith. In many ways, the most potentially intriguing figure never appears: the Army Major father who seems to have befriended and sheltered Romka, despite knowing of his crime, because he saw him as his personal “channel of grace”. To get into a mind which operates on that dubious basis would be more interesting than listening to the leadenly suspect moralising of the female solicitor. She opines, for example, that “war crimes” is an objectionable phrase because it implies that war is legitimate, only its excesses are reprehensible. But isnt the war against Hitler a case where such a proposition is arguably true? `The Handyman is as the Chichester Festival Theatre to 28 Sept (booking: 01243 781312), then moves to the Richmond Theatre, Surrey, 8-12 Oct. Booking: 0181-940 0088
Considering that Windows 95 has diagnostic utilities such as Scandisk and Disk Defragmenter built in, it might be fair to wonder why there is such a market for third-party software, such as Symantecs PC Handyman, that promises to fix your Windows 95 system before it grinds to a halt. Where PC Handyman comes into its own is that once installed it runs in the background and uses its own tools to look after your system on a regular basis. At preset intervals it scans your hard disk and automatically fixes any faults it finds. It checks your memory and drives for viruses. If you have ever been plagued by Windows 95 telling you that there are registry errors, and to restart your computer to clear them, you will appreciate the way PC Handyman sorts out the registry without any effort on your part. Where the package really scores is in its ability to make rescue disks. Windows 95 will make a rescue disk, ostensibly to get you on your feet in case of a major system meltdown. But it amounts to no more than a disk which will boot you into DOS and do nothing to restore a mangled Windows. PC Handyman, on the other hand, generates a set of two or three floppies which, in a worst-case scenario, will rebuild Windows without you having to reinstall it from scratch. For beginners, it is probably worth the purchase price just for this facility. It is not the solution to everything, though. Its “knowledgebase”, where it attempts to answer questions you might have about Windows 95, is simplistic and not as helpful to beginners as many of the books on sale. It is not infallible, either. I tried it on a system with an incorrectly installed mouse, which should have been picked up but was not. More worryingly, that particular machines hard drive was on the edge of oblivion (it failed totally two hours after PC Handyman was installed), but the software didnt recognise the severity of the problem - it merely crashed itself when it tried to read the damaged parts of the drive. Generally, the software performs well and unobtrusively, reassuringly so for those who dont want to get involved in the technicalities of system maintenance. But if your system is in really bad shape, it is best not to have too great expectations PC Handyman, pounds 49 (Symantec, 0800 526459). System requirements: IBM-PC or 100 per cent compatible, Windows 95, Intel 486 DX or higher, 8Mb of RAM (12Mb recommended), 15Mb free hard disk space, 2 x CD-Rom, 16-bit sound board, 256 Colour VGA or higher video.
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