A political satire with no bite, little wit and a totally OTT Kate Winslet
Mad as a box of gerbils. Completely loop- daloopy, like the Red arrows on acid. Further out of her tiny skull than ab Fab’s Patsy after three bottles of Bollinger.
Kate Winslet is delirious as the germophobe Chancellor of a crackpot country somewhere in Middle Europe, in The Regime (Sky Atlantic).
When she isn’t delivering televised demands for undying love from her nation of peasant sugarbeet farmers, she is entertaining diplomats with soupy karaoke versions of 1970s pop hits.
She’s so terrified of being poisoned by mould spores that her palace is bleached every other week, and she’s carted around the corridors in a Perspex sedan chair. Her only confidante is her father’s corpse, decomposing in a subterranean mausoleum.
Written by Succession’s Will Tracy, and directed by Sir Stephen Frears, who earned an Oscar nomination for The Queen with Helen Mirren, this is international political satire at maximum volume. When Chancellor Elena Vernham sits down to dinpsychotic ner alone, surrounded by dehumidifier machines and wearing an oxygen mask, the parallels with Vladimir Putin’s obsession with disease are inescapable.
But Winslet’s performance is so exaggerated, so doolally, that there’s little room for anything else. The palace aides and courtiers are all featureless because they have nothing to do except react to the Chancellor’s crazy whims. andrea Riseborough is wasted as a foul-mouthed chief of staff. She’s like Peter Capaldi’s vicious spin doctor in The Thick Of It, without any of the power, the venom or the jokes.
Tracy’s script has none of Succession’s bite. The dialogue never surprises us: often, it’s like a press release from the department of Economic affairs. Schmoozing a trade delegation, Elena’s husband Nicky (Guillaume Gallienne) explains, ‘We’re always happy to partner with our NaTO friends who share our love of freedom’ — and there’s so much of that bland waffle that even the background nuttiness starts to look boring.
Matthias Schoenaerts plays a bodyguard, who falls in love with ‘the Chief’ after being assigned to protect her. He occasionally explodes into violence — for instance, when Elena discovers an intruder sitting on the end of her bed, a scene clearly inspired by the 1982 Buckingham Palace break-in by an oddball called Michael Fagan.
all six episodes are available for streaming. You might want to skip to part four, when Hugh Grant brings the show alive, as Elena’s deposed predecessor Keplinger — now a prisoner in a luxury dungeon. Keplinger is a mass of contradictions — all charm with no honesty, capable of seeing straight through Elena but still obsessed with her. Grant evidently feels less than happy with his own performance. Last month, he said: ‘I think it was s***.’
Will Tracy has his measure, though. In perhaps the sharpest line of the entire show, Winslet tells Grant: ‘I wondered how you’re getting on — and then I remembered, as long as there’s a mirror, you’re in business.’