The turmoil and tears of Lady T’s last days in office
After being forced to acknowledge Margaret Thatcher’s authority in dealing with crises such as the Falklands War in the early episodes of Thatcher: A Very British Revolution (BBC Two), Michael Heseltine clearly relished the finale of this excellent series as he had no reason to hold back as – playing the star witness here – he recalled every twist and turn of her downfall.
Hezza scoffed at her “much romanticised” image that concealed what a “calculating politician she was”, and declared that the country would be much more “different” if he had managed to become Prime Minister. The only contrite note he struck came when he confessed that he might have wasted his time storming out of the cabinet in 1986 only to spend four years on the backbenches “waiting for her to go”.
Most of this episode was defined by the Tories who turned on Thatcher and walked out, exploring the bunker mentality of her team as they tried to survive each minister – with Hezza and Nigel Lawson able to give their sides of the story – jumping ship. Geoffrey Howe, her deputy prime minister, struck the most fatal blow: “I never thought he’d do it,” Kenneth
Baker recalled.
The manner of her downfall is well-known, but what elevated this documentary was how it portrayed the turmoil of those involved. Thatcher tried to put on a brave face, telling reporters to “calm down dear”, but behind the door of Number 10, it was anything but calm. Peter Lilley, a stalwart Thatcherite, said that telling her to go was the hardest message he had ever had to deliver to anyone “I’ve liked or lived”. He was at least sincere, unlike those ministers who got teary-eyed on hearing Thatcher read out her resignation statement just hours after telling her to go. Chris Patten put it well – “crocodiles keep a handkerchief happy”.
The ending brought home the pathos of her exit, as those who had been close to her considered how she struggled to adapt to no longer being in Downing Street. Bernard Ingham offered the most touching anecdote of the entire series, recalling how he would bring thorny political problems to her every time they met for them to thrash out, even as she was suffering from dementia.
His bittersweet experience was heart-rending to hear. It capped off the uneasy truth of her time out of office: being Prime Minister had come to consume her so wholly that she did not know how to do anything else. As much as we might remember the Thatcher revolution, and her enemies might revel in the manner of her departure, we should not forget about the humanity of the woman at the heart of it all. Asa Bennett
Is Big Little Lies (Sky Atlantic) the best drama on TV right now? It is definitely aslow burn. But this story of rich American housewives and the jagged boulders beneath the apparently tranquil surfaces of their comfortable lives is just superbly written.
The second episode of this new series – titled Tell-tale Hearts – hit us from the get-go. Bam – Celeste (Nicole Kidman) crashed her car strung out on sleeping pills; Mary Louise (a terrifying Meryl Streep) and Madeline (Reese Witherspoon) pitched into open warfare; Renata’s (Laura Dern) life collapsed; Madeline’s marriage ended – possibly. And none of those things was even the important bit.
In this episode the secret that the murdered Perry was a wife beater and rapist became known. But not, as you might anticipate, in a moment of dramatic confrontation, but out of the mouths of babes. Madeline’s clever 9-year-old Chloe had simply overheard her mother speaking on the phone – gathering that Ziggy (the son of Perry’s rape victim Jane) and Josh and Max (the twins he had had with his wife Celeste) were brothers. And then she told her class – the three boys included. Little Ziggy had been told that Perry had “salted” his mother and didn’t understand what that was. Jane explained it. Max – or was it Josh? – asked Celeste if his father was a bad man. The genie was out of the bottle, uncorked by innocents.
BLL’S writer David E Kelley has a particular talent for wrong-footing us; for turning a moment on its moral head; for reminding us of the dual bathos and pathos of life. At the end of the episode the twins came to visit their new brother, bearing gifts. And thus the revelation of rape meant that Jane and Ziggy had gained a family. It was a moment so surprising and touching it made my heart hurt. Serena Davies
Thatcher ★★★★★ Big Little Lies ★★★★★