All-star cast in BBC2 Thatcher drama
Thursday, July 24th, 2008Margaret! Margaret!
A new drama about Margaret Thatcher’s final days in office is being filmed for BBC2. The drama, stars Rome’s Lindsay Duncan as Margaret Thatcher, James Fox as foreign policy advisor Charles Powell and Robert Hardy as deputy prime-minister Willie Whitelaw. Amazingly, her husband Denis is portrayed by none other than Ian McDiarmid, the actor most famous for his role as the Emperor in the Star Wars films. In an echo of Lindsay’s Rome character Servilia, the drama will examine the men “who loved her and those who betrayed her”, and chronicles her last days as Prime Minister, according to the BBC.
Margaret will be produced by Great Meadow Productions, the company begind the controversial BBC4 drama, The Long Way to Finchley which looked at Thatcher’s early days and was almost taken off air for fear that it would upset the ailing former prime minister too much. The new drama is set in the early 90’s, at a time when Thatcher was slowly losing her firm grip on her party and was forced to resign. The BBC has described it as “intimate portrayal of a woman on the brink of ruin”. Robert Cooper, co-founder Great Meadow Productions, says Margaret is a “darker examination” of the Iron Lady’s last months as Prime Minister. “It is a compelling look into what 11 years in power did to her,” he said.
The drama boasts a host of well-respected British actors, such as Kevin McNally (Pirates of the Caribbean) as Kenneth Clark; John Sessions (The Good Shepherd) as former foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe; Doctors‘ Michael Cochrane as MP Alan Clark; Michael Maloney, who starred alondside Judi Dench in the movie Notes on a Scandal, as Thatcher’s successor John Major and Rosemary Leach (My Family) playing the Queen. The production, written by Hancock and Joan’s Richard Cottan, started filming in London last week.
