FC;D8E @J N8I ><E@LJ

projects a blustering honesty. Yet he’s also sly and wracked with self-doubt. He may be the man of the moment, but his defiant spirit is struggling to free itself from the weight of history.

“You are strong because you are imperfect,” his wife Clemmie (Kristin Scott Thomas) tells him. “You are wise because you have doubts.”

It’s May 1940, the country has been at war for eight months and it’s going badly.

When Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup) finally resigns, the old warhorse is the only candidate acceptable to all sides of the coalition government. But not all of Winston’s enemies wear swastikas. Chamberlain’s allies and their preferred candidate Viscount Halifax (Stephen Dillane) are waiting for him to fail.

For them, the war is already over. With the British Army encircled in northern France, the only sensible action is to go cap-in-hand to Hitler. When Parliament tires of Winston’s bluster, Halifax will step in to take charge of a new client state.

But this British Bulldog still has plenty of bark and a very powerful bite. While Dunkirk, showed us the heroism of the troops, Wright’s beautifully shot drama is all about dingy, smokefilled rooms, airless bunkers and the dark plotting of shifty politicians.

The script, from Theory Of Everything writer Anthony McCarten, is just as impressive.

When a disgusted King George (an excellent Ben Mendelsohn) asks his new PM how he can stomach alcohol so early in the day, Winston growls “practice”.

But mostly this is Oldman’s show. If the rumours about his retirement are true, he’s gone out with one hell of a bang.