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Post by swl on Feb 26, 2009 23:16:53 GMT
Anybody watch the dramatisation of Thatcher's last days tonight on BBC2?
Brilliant! It admitted at the start that some of it was fiction, but the overall tone was spot on. Some of those scheming behind her back were really loathesome creatures. But most strikingly of all, the drama really stuck the knife into John Major. Where characters like Howe, Gummer & Rifkind were shown just to be gutless; Major was portrayed as a Machiavellian schemer and a real nasty piece of work.
The girl playing Thatcher was superb, catching her character, mannerisms and voice perfectly.
Best piece of historical drama I've seen for ages.
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Post by Patrick on Feb 26, 2009 23:26:58 GMT
I will watch it sometime. For the moment though I can't really get around the fact that Lindsay Duncan's old enough to play her!
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Post by riotgrrl on Feb 27, 2009 17:44:19 GMT
It did seem very good but . . I fell asleep on the couch watching it.
Mind you, I knew how it ended anyway.
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stephan
Lovely, Happy & Gorgeous!
Posts: 278
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Post by stephan on Feb 27, 2009 17:48:25 GMT
Home to late to see the start so I only watched a bit. It looked great but Lindsay Duncan is sexy-Thatcher was not
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Post by swl on Feb 27, 2009 18:38:28 GMT
I kept watching hoping it would have a better ending this time She was your kind of grrl Riot. Great lines like, "I'm a woman, I have to dominate men. Or they'll dominate me."
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stephan
Lovely, Happy & Gorgeous!
Posts: 278
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Post by stephan on Feb 27, 2009 19:02:20 GMT
Thatcher was the most reviled PM in history before she got lucky when some Argentinians invaded a place nobody had heard of. She put back the place of women in politics by at least 50 years-after her it was just babes and Anne Widdicombe and Ms Smith Discuss with references
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Post by everso on Feb 27, 2009 19:24:39 GMT
It did seem very good but . . I fell asleep on the couch watching it.
Mind you, I knew how it ended anyway. One of my failings, I'm afraid.
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Post by patsy on Feb 27, 2009 21:00:38 GMT
Didn't see it. Watched Crime watch to cheer myself up and then fell asleep during a rather mild Question Time.
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Post by everso on Feb 27, 2009 22:07:11 GMT
What's the matter with us? We're all behaving like old ladies.
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Post by motorist on Feb 27, 2009 22:21:06 GMT
What's the matter with us? We're all behaving like old ladies.
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Post by Patrick on Mar 1, 2009 0:59:38 GMT
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Post by gIant on Mar 4, 2009 19:56:15 GMT
Didn't watch it I'm afraid. However due to lack of brain cells, I can't actually remember what I did watch, if anything!
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Post by percyplum on Mar 4, 2009 21:06:45 GMT
I missed it and him indoors didn't set the video properly. Grr. She is one of my all-time heroines, not just because she was a strong leader when the country needed one, but becuase of the way she handled the Falklands conflict. It was an invasion of British sovereign territory. I don't think the Falkland Islanders would think of themselves as a place no one had heard of. It was a shame there was no one of her calibre to follow on but, it has to be said, that was partly her fault at getting rid of anyone smart enough!
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Post by trubble on Mar 5, 2009 1:01:45 GMT
The problem with fictionalising and writers' license is knowing which bits are based on urban myth or composite scene to convey a true atmosphere and which bits are the writer's commentary. I watched half of it. I have accidentally misplaced the second half and I'm not happy because I liked what I saw. Once I saw the caveat at the start though I was disappointed. The Caligula reference and someone having to explain to her the cost of human life sounds ridiculous - - and yet, they were angry times and she was out of touch in the end so perhaps they really could be true. I wish someone would make something a bit more factual. I watched the Long Walk to Finchley - again, no idea how factual/fictional it was - the politics and the sexism was interesting, her relationship with Dennis was portrayed as her as the single-minded abusive spouse and him the poor wee dafty. How much of that could possibly be true? It was caricatures and fun but... I am not enlightened in the way I would have liked to have been. I believe that ''Milk'' didn't have this option because it was guided by a man who was there at the time and because there was footage, sometimes interwoven, and reports from the time and because Harvey Milk taped himself telling his story or at least his core truth we knew his version of events. The Guildford Four film was supposed to be riddled with fiction but I never knew which bits. A Cry in the Dark was very close to the real thing seemingly. The closer to the real thing the better the production.
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Post by Patrick on Mar 5, 2009 12:37:59 GMT
You never realise that what they call a "generation" is such a long time until you see some historical docudrama - or "retro" drama, and the 12 year old producers get their hands on it. Then, unless they really have someone on hand who lived through it to give advice - who has no bias him or herself. They will still get it wrong.
Find any historical or retro "drama" or programme and you will find a message board somewhere tearing it to pieces for it's glaring inaccuracies!
I don't know if it was a BBC production, cos someone phoned up near the end (I reckon it was more likely a "bought in from somewhere else job) but there was an advertisement documentary on Beeb 4 on the history of Ford in the UK - and it was so happy clappy to be unbelievable! What it was though was a look at the cars rather than the industrial relations - Except even here you wouldn't know that models from BMC trounced Ford in the sales stakes throughout the 60's up until the early 70's. They touched on the smallest detail of industrial unrest - like it never happened - but again that was the point of the programme. Yet in my heart of hearts, I couldn't see them putting together such a prog for either BMC or Rootes, and that's a great shame.
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