TV, FILM & RADIO
An empire fading fast
The Singapore Grip / ITV, September
On 15 February 1942, Singapore, one of Britain’s key strongholds in Asia, fell to the Japanese. As many as 80,000 troops – Britons, Australians and Indians – surrendered. Winston Churchill noted that this represented “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history”. At least in part, it’s a defeat that can be blamed on a poorly planned and executed defence.
Despite the fact that the British took back control of the territory in 1945, it’s difficult now not to see the loss of Singapore as evidence of an empire in long-term decline. Which is probably what drew the Anglo-Irish novelist JG Farrell (1935-79) to offer a satirical take on life in the former colony in (1978), a novel which mercilessly
