THE REGIME

DOWNFALL OF A DICTATOR Sky Atlantic, 8 April

Kate Winslet lends her star power to this comic political satire about the unravelling of a fictional authoritarian regime in central Europe. She plays Chancellor Elena Vernham (right), a hilariously unhinged head of state leading her country to ruin.

‘It’s a satirical drama with a geopolitical backdrop,’ Kate explains. ‘Elena is a hypochondriac, she’s allergic to mould, she hasn’t been out of her home for two years and is kind of a crumbling mess. And as she crumbles and becomes more hysterical and deranged and absurd, the entire nation starts to crumble around her.’

As Elena unravels, she enlists the help of an unlikely confidant, Herbert Zubak (Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts), to help her expand her influence. A heavyweight supporting cast sees The

Good Wife star Martha Plimpton as the US Secretary of State, Andrea Riseborough as Elena’s righthand woman, and Hugh Grant as the former chancellor (inset below), who was ousted seven years previously.

The Regime was created by Succession producer Will Tracy, who certainly knows how to make political in-fighting funny. At times it is frighteningly on-the-money — although written before Russia’s

2022 invasion of

Ukraine, it features a very similar occurrence. But

Will is sure no one will mistake his imaginary world for real life, because Elena

Vernham is so off-the-scale. ‘It would be difficult to mistake Elena for anyone but Elena,’ he says.

And Kate’s hardest job during filming? Keeping a straight face.

‘We just wet ourselves every day,’ says the Oscar-winner.