Dramatic delights
Simon Hoggart
Sunday evening, and usually there's a choice between a gloomy, hard-hitting drama about social problems, probably on BBC2 or Channel 4, or else something light, frothy and as warming as a cup of cocoa on a chilly night. You'll find that on BBC1 or ITV.
This week the 'it's grim down south' feature was The Deal (Channel 4), a dramadocumentary about the relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. It's commonplace in these unsparing examinations of the dark side of Britain that we see the main character, usually a young man, when he is still full of hope and promise, shortly before he falls into evil ways and ends up despised and rejected by society. This gave The Deal a tremendous poignancy. Michael Sheen, as the young Blair, did look so happy and eager, packed and rolling with idealism like plastic beads in a bean bag. Mr Sheen remarked last week that he was 'just a bit upset by how little they had to do to turn me into Blair'. But that little work was awfully effective. When he first appeared, being introduced to Gordon Brown by John Smith, who wanted them to share on office, his teeth seemed to precede him into the room. The effect was. perhaps, of a rabbit who has just won a lifetime's supply of lettuce. But I thought, yes, he did look exactly like that, 20 years ago. Actually he still did seven years ago. There were so many great things to achieve, and so little time to do them! It's like The Picture of Dorian Gray, except that it's the portrait from the attic we see now, and the handsome, clear-skinned youth who is locked away for ever.
And David Morrissey as Brown was quite brilliant. I have to confess an interest: he asked me to describe Brown's manner, so I fixed a lunch with him and the Chancellor's latest biographer, Julia Langdon. It was an excellent meal, at the Glasshouse in Kew, far better than the celebrated — and now closed for ever — Granita, where the deal of the title allegedly took place. We can't have helped him all that much, but whatever happened, Morrissey was Brown, right down to the mannerisms, the glower, and the worka
holic's resentment at being taken away from his work, like a drunk clinging to his bottle. Some commentators have made the point that the play never showed Brown's cheerier, fun-loving side, as when he watches football with trusted friends — hut of course that wasn't part of the story.
And Paul Rhys as Peter Mandelson, in yellow socks, was the original slithy tove, gyring and gimbling around the Labour party, sliding imperceptibly away from Gordon Brown to Tony Blair.
There were mistakes. I don't think either Brown or Blair drank as much as these two, and I doubt that their office was ever littered with empty beer cans. Also, returning officers aren't supposed to sound gleeful when they announce the result. I bumped into Charlie Whelan in Bournemouth this week; he told me that he had never actually uttered any of the lines attributed to him; even, disappointingly, the wonderful description of Mandelson: 'That man smells of vanilla.'
The Deal has been criticised also for being too close to the Brown version of events, depicting Blair as a duplicitous cheat. But Brown didn't come out too well, either: he was dour, sulky, and the one thing no one in politics can afford to be — naive. Would you want as prime minister a politician who believed what other politicians told him? But these were small points compared to the delights: when the news came through that John Smith had died Brown looked stricken, whereas Blair's eyes flickered, just once, very briefly, hut enough to reveal the machinations going on behind the face, like the flickering light on a computer that's booting up as the power courses through the circuits.
Surprisingly, in spite of all the publicity it had, The Deal got only 1.4 million viewers, much the lowest figure for the four main channels that night, and most of them in Bournemouth at the Labour party conference, I suspect.
Monarch Of The Glen (BBC1), your evening cup of cocoa, did far better on its return. Some of us assumed the series would sink gently into its grave after the departure of Richard Briers as Hector. Briers discovered that he couldn't stand spending half his life in northern Scotland, with the added problem that it's never allowed to rain in Monarch, which must mean they can do roughly one afternoon's filming a week.
In fact, the key to its success is Archie, the incredibly boring laird who makes even Gordon Brown look a fun guy. The other characters — scatty mum, permanently angry wife, ludicrous and lubricious Kilwillie — revolve around him. If Archie ever did or said something interesting, the whole balance of the show would be destroyed.
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