stevie boy

She had her faults, for sure, but she set a course and went with it, she was a strong leader and everything Blair & Brown have done over the last few years re inforces the point. As for the programme,entertaining.

AdrianTurner

I just wanted to clarify something - many posters have quoted a line in my original comment that Ted Heath was a "one nation poofter." This was a quote from the script, spoken by the out-going MP for Finchley played by the redoubtable Geoffrey Palmer, who said it straight to the face of Ted Heath when the latter said he had backed Mrs Thatcher's candidacy as the new MP for Finchley. I'm glad people have responded enthusiastically to this wonderful comedy-drama which I hope will also be shown on BBC2. One little further thought - technically, the film was shot with a sort of nostalgic haze, to suggest that it was happening in the past. It might have been more appropriate to shoot it in that bright Technicolor style of the 50s, like Genevieve, say.

samkydd

I wonder if the public purse paid for the RNLI and Air Sea Rescue helicopters to try and find the little twat! The taxpayer footed the bill when he went missing in Africa on yet another lazy bastard's adventure holiday in his Peugeot!

I still can't understand how on earth Marky Thatch got a knighthood, he even makes Lord Archer look honest! But then how did he ever become a Lord? Goodness me the shame we must feel as British citizens when we see such parasites rewarded with dishonourable high honours!

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

smudge

The actress playing Maggie was Andrea Riseborough, and the only reason I gave this 'drama' the time of day. She is one of the few up and coming actresses I think will be 'one to watch'.

I hope Beeb satellite don't tinker too much with the promised season of ALMOST HUMAN after the excellent performance by all three principals (AR as the ghost girl...) in the pilot. The lad who played the werewolf (sorry, I forget his name) will also be a performer to keep an eye on too, methinks.

Anyway - back to the so-called drama of Finchley. Why do modern writers insist on putting 'knowing' and well signposted 'comic asides' in their writing - such as the Mark Thatcher joke? Can nobody write subtle staire anymore - or do they just think that modern audiences are too 'dumbed down' to understand it?

These elements (often picked out in advance by reviewers) hit the viewer over the head and are more often than not incredibly jarring and groanworthy. Andrea Riseborough may not have done a 'Julie Walters' in the way she played the character, but the outcome was rendered just as awful by the writer's crashing gags...

Smudge

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

Steve Crook

I thought they put the jokes in because they were funny
It was a drama not a satire, and a drama about the life of a person without a sense of humour (she had to be told how to tell a joke and often got it wrong) could do with something to lighten it.

Were there many other gags apart from the two about Mark? I haven't seen the full thing yet.

As for them being signposted by reviewers, that's hardly the fault of the writer of the drama.

Steve

smudge

There was that bit about young Carol reading up on life in the jungle - to tie in with her winning that awful Ant & Dec celeb show...

It wasn't billed as a comedy either! I suppose I was just hoping - after Walters' piece of nonsense on Whitehouse - for some straight drama. I'd have thought that the subject leant itself to a straight approach, but never mind.

I am obviously out of step with the modern approach to viewing. Is straight drama a thing of the past? Does modern drama always have to have some other underlying element to it like THE BILL (Soap) or this sort of drama with the overt comedy elements?

And please, let's not have someone tell me about the use of comedy in Shakespeare and if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for anybody. I just think it's a shame to build a decent cast round a serious story and not be able to show events and people as they really were.

Smudge

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

Steve Crook

What about the gag when she was in the lab, working out how to pump air into ice-cream? She blamed the Labour government's cost cutting and said that when she was in power ever child would have as much milk as they needed.

Maggie Thatcher - Milk Snatcher

Or when she dances with Ted Heath and says "You lead - I'll follow".

I really don't see what's wrong with putting a few gags into a drama. It was light hearted but it was far from being a laugh a minute. And the gags would have just raised knowing smiles, certainly not belly-laughs. It wasn't meant to be a documentary of exactly everything that happened in her early years. I doubt if that really had as many laughs or smiles. But it was subtitled "How Margaret might have done it". Presumably with an emphasis on the "might"

I thought it was well written, well balanced and very well staged and performed.

Steve

rskershaw

I agree. It looks like straight drama is out of fashion at the moment.

'Fantabulosa' and the other four "dramas" on H.Corbett & Brambell, Hancock, Howerd and Green were in a similar vein, though they did contain pathos. The Whitehouse drama was essentially a skit on her life and prudishness (and full of anachronisms). For this reason I assumed the Thatcher drama would be the same so I didn't watch it.

I did see a repeat of 'The Falklands Play' earlier in the week. Though I didn't necessarily agree with its political stance, at least it was a serious drama.

And what's all this about me having me leg off?

julian_craster

CaptainWaggett

No!

Greg Kinnear? I think you mean Rory 'Son of Roy' Kinnear, who is being groomed by Nicholas Hytner to take over the role of 'British's Greatest Living Actor' (he's being lined up for Hamlet at the NT next year)

Geoffers

But that's actually Denis & Margaret, isn't it? I doubt Mrs T. was ever thought of as like a beautiful film actress of the 50s, though I agree she looks much nicer in this era than she did in the 70s & 80s.

I really enjoyed the programme and thought the references to future events re the milk, Mark etc. were fine - not overdone.

penfold

The same way so many of those parasites get theirs...waited for his father to die. Thatch Jr.'s knighthood is a baronetcy, an inherited knighthood, originally given to Denis...one of the last so honoured, I believe. Archer probably got his peerage from knowing where a few bodies are buried....

Bit of a Bay Window, what??