1 month ago
4
Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. Michael Sheen as Tony Blair in The Deal, The Queen and The Special Relationship. Richard Roxburgh as Bob Hawke in Hawke. Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour. Frank Langella as Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon. They’re all standouts: convincing screen portraits of national leaders. But performances like these require skills far beyond mimicry.
There are myriad decisions involving voice, posture, mannerisms and the nuances within each of them. There are also choices about hair, make-up and costume design. Beyond that, there’s the need to bring an inner life to the surface, to capture something elemental about the spirit of the subjects, and to do it in a way that feels authentic, both within the framework of a drama and for viewers familiar with the person.
The multitude of choices and tiny adjustments is vast, yet those decisions are crucial to the overall effect. A false note can destroy the necessary illusion. If a bad a wig or a wobbly accent becomes a central aspect of the reaction to the character, it’s a red-flag indicator of failure.
Playing Boris Johnson in This England, Kenneth Branagh’s challenge was made even more difficult by the fact that his subject was alive and fresh in the public consciousness.
His version of the former UK prime minister is affable and blustery, a hearty hand-shaker who bounds up to people like a labrador, greeting them with a hail-fellow-well-met chumminess. There’s the unmistakable haystack of tousled blond hair, the tubby belly and hunched shoulders, combined with florid recitations of Shakespeare and dark cautions delivered in ancient Greek. A controversial politician, he’s also a colourful character.
Michael Winterbottom’s propulsive pandemic drama depicts Johnson as an embattled head of state struggling to manage a rapidly escalating health crisis and its political fallout. Made with lightning speed, the six-part series originally screened here in 2022 and is now having its free-to-air premiere on the ABC. And it’s as topical and confronting today as it was then.
Co-written by prolific and eclectic producer-director Winterbottom with Kieron Quirke, This England recreates the first phase of the coronavirus spread, a febrile six-month period early in 2020, and its focus is broad. Introducing itself as “a fiction based on real events”, it takes in hospitals, scientists, home-care and aged-care workers and their patients, families affected by the disease, and follows discussions in the corridors of power about how to respond to the alarming developments.
A sense of danger is palpable, as is the impression of Johnson heading a government struggling to respond to numerous challenges while a physically and emotionally exhausted workforce battles to keep calm and carry on.
Describing the series as “a collage”, Winterbottom has said, “Boris is just one strand that runs through it, because it really is a mosaic of lots of different stories ... It’s not a character piece. Boris/Ken is just the central character in the story.”
He’s also critical to it. If Branagh’s portrayal had been cartoonish, the series would be substantially diminished. But it avoids the pitfalls and the result is gripping.
An additional reason for this is the way in which Johnson and his pregnant fiancee, Carrie Symonds (Ophelia Lovibond), are depicted: both at the centre of the crisis, yet oddly remote from it. They seem to exist in a bubble of blithe entitlement. Ferried between stately residences in chauffeur-driven limousines or isolated in their apartment upstairs at No. 10, they automatically expect public servants to act as dog-minders for their minimally house-trained Jack Russell cross – a detail that speaks volumes.
The UK screen industry has long had appetite for examining the lives of its leaders and, over recent years, has provided compelling frameworks for fine performances.
The Crown, for example, offers an intriguing and illuminating portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, her family and of the prime ministers who served her through decades. Eight PMs are seen through the series and several are vividly memorable: John Lithgow’s Emmy-winning turn as a commanding, tormented Winston Churchill; Gillian Anderson’s brittle, resolute Margaret Thatcher; and Bertie Carvel’s mild, canny Tony Blair.
Locally, the appetite for such dramatisations has been less enthusiastic. The most impressive and audacious attempt came with the 1983 Kennedy Miller miniseries, The Dismissal, which chronicled the 1975 sacking of the Labor government. Like This England, it was shot close enough to the events it depicted to seem current and topical.
Made for Channel Ten in the days when our commercial networks invested in quality dramas, it was an ambitious and accomplished production with writer-directors including George Miller and Phillip Noyce. While it dealt with three key figures – Prime Minister Gough Whitlam (Max Phipps), Opposition leader Malcolm Fraser (John Stanton) and Governor General Sir John Kerr (John Meillon) – it also benefited from an extensive, beautifully cast ensemble.
It was a resounding critical and commercial success and nothing has rivalled it since, although there have been sporadic telemovies: 1993’s Joh’s Jury, with Gerry Connolly as the former Queensland premier facing perjury charges; 2007’s Curtin, with William McInnes as the wartime leader; and 2010’s Hawke, with Roxburgh as the country’s longest-serving Labor prime minister.
The efforts involved in getting Roxburgh’s appearance right for the latter indicate how important the details can be. In fact, they ordered three wigs from a specialist in Germany. “You have to get that box ticked as fast as possible when you’re playing Hawke,” Roxburgh told me during production. “If you turn up with some dodgy bit of road-kill on your head, or a bouffant, there’s the risk is that you’re going to look like Max Gillies doing his very funny Bob Hawke … It was one of my stipulations: we can do it if I don’t have to fret about that.”
It was a sign of success that none of the responses to Hawke mentioned bad hair. The same could be said for Branagh’s Johnson: that distinctive mop might’ve been a talking point in BoJo’s chequered career, but in This England, our attention is effectively directed elsewhere.
This England premieres 9pm, Sunday, February 1 on the ABC and ABC iview. You can also stream it in full on BritBox.
Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
