4. Aiden Hoynes The Politician's Husband
Following on from Paula Milne's critically-acclaimed The Politician's Wife, The Politician's Husband offered a novel new twist on the family versus ambition dynamic. Namely, this time the action scripted by Milne, again would focus on a husband attempting to sabotage his wife's (played by the peerless Emily Watson) ascendant political career, rather than vice-versa. While the Juliet Stevenson-starring original is indeed fantastic, I'd argue it's because of the above change that this version becomes even more compelling. Namely, by turning the beached party into David Tennant's previously high-flying political animal, it took away the sense of righteous indignation of its predecessor's protagonist and turns it into a far nastier beast. Basically, Tennant's Aiden Hoynes isn't a very nice man, and when he's dumped from the party's front bench and into political Siberia after a failed coup itself a product of naked, self-serving ambition he finds both his demotion to househusband offensive to both his masculinity and his previous status as breadwinner. The weird thing is that Tennant's machiavellian character isn't sympathetic at all, but he remains nothing more than compelling and troublingly human throughout. His reluctance to slip into what was his wife's role is understandable, yet worthy of scorn, but it's when Hoynes really starts to jump off at the deep end that Tennant gets to shine. Whether he's trying to reassert his dominance by effectively raping his wife, or attempting to re-establish gender roles by sabotaging her contraception, he's utterly odious, and it's Tennant's stern-faced, cerebral performance that lets us hate him so. Like a true politician, he's all smiles and courtesy on the surface, yet you can always see the cracks in the mask and the machinations whirring away. It's a very difficult trick to pull off, but Tennant manages it with ease.