IBBLE-DIBBLE, MRS T’S IN TROUBLE!

The Queen and Margaret Thatcher, who was just six months her senior, were both 53 years old when Mrs T became Prime Minister in 1979 – an interesting age for women, as Thatcher’s husband Denis (played by Stephen Boxer) points out in the show. ‘Two menopausal women,’ he chuckles, ‘that’ll be a smooth ride.’

Show creator Peter Morgan, who’s been with Gillian Anderson – who plays Mrs Thatcher – for the past four years, agrees. ‘It had never occurred to me at first that when we were talking about these two women we were talking about women who were both in the midst of hormonal and chemical turmoil. But there was a moment when I was writing about these two extraordinary icons, who at times had a very challenging relationship, when I suddenly thought,

“Oh, gosh!”’

Gillian Anderson, resplendent in immovably lacquered wig and icily regal demeanour as the feared Iron Lady (pictured right), says the two women, menopausal or not, were cut from very different cloth. ‘They were both hard workers – the Queen has been shaking hands and showing up for a very long time, and Mrs Thatcher was a grafter too, so that was a big similarity between them. But they also had completely different ways of dealing with things. Thatcher would confront things head on, while the very nature of the

Queen’s job is to be a neutral party.

So just the nature of that single thing would make it complex.’

The differences between them are sharply flagged up in an early episode of the series when the Thatchers are invited to Balmoral… with disastrous results. ‘I think Mrs Thatcher assumed they were going to be more sophisticated than they were,’ says Gillian. ‘She was a real monarchist and had been admiring the Royal Family for so long that she thought there would be a lot more seriousness, a lot more cultural and political conversation than there was ever going to be. That was a real shock to her. That and the amount of time they spent playing after-dinner parlour games while the country was in real trouble.’

Matters reach a low point during an after-dinner game called The Ibble-dibble Game, a raucous mixture of tongue-twisting, clapping and counting that involves daubing the face with a burnt cork when someone gets their turn wrong. Mrs T, to the undisguised horror of the delightedly smudge-faced royals, performs her turn perfectly without cracking a smile. ‘Oh, well done,’ murmurs someone uneasily into the deathly hush that follows. ‘She understood the rules,’ says Peter. ‘But she didn’t understand the temper or the amusement. She just killed it.’