Did anyone catch this on BBC4 last night? Pretty good, I thought. A kind of semi-comic, semi-imagined version of what might have happened during Thatcher's (or, to begin with, Roberts') first decade of trying to be elected to Parliament. Reminded me a bit of Jeffrey Archer: The Truth (but without the surreal flights of fancy).

Andrea Riseborough, although she doesn't look much like Thatch, convincingly captured that combination of cold dead eyes and sickly smile, Rory Kinnear was decent enough as the pussywhipped Dennis, and Samuel West's portrayal of Ted Heath - a barely-controlled mess of uptightness, repression, indecision and impotence - was brilliant.

The foreshadowing gags were perhaps laid on a bit too thickly, mind. The odd milk-snatcher premonition is one thing, but getting the young Carol to refer to going into the jungle, and the young Mark to refer to getting lost in the Sahara (twice), was surplus to requirements.

Still, I'd recommend it if you've got nothing better to watch this week. It's available for another six days here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b00c188n.shtml?src=ip_potpw

(and, I dare say, on whatever cable/digital things you've got).

I've got it Sky+d, along with the excellent Alan Clark Diaries.

They were all shown as part of the 'Margaret Thatcher season', which seems to follow the index that the more hateful the person, the higher the quality of the shows in their televisual tribute.

QUOTE:
Rory Kinnear was decent enough as the pussywhipped Dennis

Jesus, I read that as "Roy Kinnear"...

Thanks for the link, I'll enjoy that over the weekend.

Actually, no, I won't.

"Sorry, this programme is only available to play in the UK".

(Sigh).

ant259 wrote:

QUOTE:

QUOTE:
Rory Kinnear was decent enough as the pussywhipped Dennis

Jesus, I read that as "Roy Kinnear"...

Thanks for the link, I'll enjoy that over the weekend.

It's his son.

I remember when Roy Kinnear died, and the front page of The Sun had a picture of his kid at the funeral with the headline 'BE BRAVE, RORY'. I remember thinking that was a really weird thing to put on the front page. Slow news day, I guess.

Anyway, he's trumped in sitcom royalty terms by the Ted Heath guy, who is the son of Timothy West and Prunella Scales.

These are the things you are totally oblivious to if you live outside the U.K. Thanks for the information.

is ted heath dead, and has he been outed yet? I can't remember.

He's dead, and he's about as outed as he's gonna get. Last night's show made a lot of hints that he was gay, bi, or plain confused as to what he was.

There was quite a nice scene towards the end when Thatcher gives her predecesser (Geoffrey Palmer) a right mouthful about his record in Parliament.

She gave Callaghan a blow job? Yeuurgh!

He means Thatcher's predecessor as MP for Finchley, not as PM.

I think the idea of Mrs Thatcher providing oral relief to anyone would be yeurghsome.

Didn't realise "a right mouthful about his record in Parliament" was slang for blowjob.

It's now.

There used to be a brothel around the corner from the House of Commons. As you might expect, its trade base included a lot of MPs.

The woman who ran it used to keep a few Margaret Thatcher masks on the premises for the girls to wear if requested by the clients. The masks got a lot of airings, apparently.