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Brian and Maggie

Reviewer: Maryam Philpott

Writer: James Graham

Director: Stephen Frears

“It’s only television” Bernard Ingham tells Margaret Thatcher after a gnarly interview with journalist Brian Walden that signalled the end of her premiership, and it is a mistake characters often make across James Graham’s work, dismissing the power of television and the people who watch it as irrelevant and insubstantial. But as audiences have learned in Graham’s stage plays Quiz and Best of Enemies, you are never in control of television, it is always in control of you as Thatcher learns in this new two-part drama screening on Channel 4 which mourns the loss of the long form interview and the days of more substantial political debate.

In 1989, Brian Walden and Margaret Thatcher sit down together for a decisive interview for London Weekend Television shortly after the resignation of a key official. Expecting a straightforward discussion, Thatcher is soon on the backfoot as Walden strikes some devastating political blows. But the pair had met many times in similar circumstances across the decade before this encounter so what made this exchange so different?

A classic example of Graham’s style of drama, Brian and Maggie is not just a restaging of a meaty piece of political theatre and a gladiatorial confrontation between some famous faces, instead it examines the places where the legitimately delegated power of Number 10 is ensnared by the assumed power of the media as both estates attempt to use each other to further careers, guarantee political extension and improve ratings – themes that appear time and again in the writer’s work.

As with Best of Enemies which dramatised the interview series between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley in the USA in 1968, Graham is interested both in the period before the Walden-Thatcher interview, spooling back to the late 1970s, and the processes around television-making itself. It begins as several of Graham’s stage plays do with a teaser for the finale before taking the audience incrementally through the building relationship between Walden and Thatcher, their previous interviews and the personal connection that developed behind closed doors that raises interesting questions about their professional ethics and their motives.

And we see the off-camera preparations as the London Weekend Television team work with Walden to prepare for interviews over several years as well as the technicalities of hair, make-up and requests for flowers that would ultimately shape the perspective of the original viewer. The battle comes in Episode Two with text taken from the original recording (also being shown in full on Channel 4) with behind-the-scenes moments where Thatcher tries to compose herself. Frears directs with quick cuts and close ups to heighten the tension as both characters strive for victory and the chance to complete their argument.

Although Thatcher and Thatcherism looms large over Graham’s writing, she has rarely appeared in his dramas in person, most often euphemistically referred to by terrified and beleaguered staff as ‘The Lady’ or resented by working people suffering under her regime so this appearance is a relatively rare one. Played with some humanity by Harriet Walter in a very fine performance, there is nuance to this version of Thatcher who is hard and unyielding but also clear eyed about her intentions and trying to keep control of the men keen to succeed her.

Steve Coogan’s Walden is equally layered, a Labour politician turned journalist, there are lots of interesting things for Coogan to mine from the clear admiration that Walden displays for Thatcher, particularly in the even-handed debates, to his own desire to be take seriously as a media professional and the tipping point into what Thatcher calls a “betrayal” in their final meeting in front of the cameras at LWT.

Of course, Graham’s dramas look to the past to tell us something important about who we are now and Maggie and Brian, like the Vidal and Buckley interviews for NBC, is a turning point moment; not just for Thatcher and contemporary Conservatism but for the seriousness and rigour of public political discourses and how we communicate about our national life. Thatcher and Walden never spoke again, and thanks to the influence of television, now we don’t either.

Brian and Maggie is screening on Channel 4 on 29 and 30 January.

The Reviews Hub Score:

Turning point drama

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The Reviews Hub Film Team is under the editorship of Maryam Philpott.

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