TORIES, Tories, everywhere. And in Margaret almost all of them were running. Not just running the country but very nearly sprinting: between smoke-filled rooms, along gloomy oak-panelled corridors, in and out of the House. Always running, always plot
ting. It was like It's A Knockout with the contestants donning outsized pinstriped trousers and stuffing pillows down their backsides to create the classic Tory beam-end. No, it was like Monty Python's Upper Class Twit of the Year.
Alan Clark ran up the stairs, three at a time. When Michael Heseltine thundered down them, strands of lustrous Tory mane bounced like the rotor blades on a Westland helicopter caught in a tailspin. Once, these two collided on a landing. "Idiot!" Hezza muttered under his breath. Clarky: "Wanker!"
Nigel Lawson didn't run – couldn't, most probably. Early on in this drama about Margaret Thatcher's demise, "Fatty" Lawson was likened to a "sack of beetroot". But Ken Clark was nimble in his suede brogues and Norman Tebbit could give a "wet" a head start in the 50-yard dash and still tank him. Then, of course, there was Thatcher. Her every move was accompanied by a cartoon superhero soundtrack whoosh. Robert Downey Jr played Iron Man, and here Lindsay Duncan was the Iron Lady. Wisely, Duncan didn't try to mimic Thatch's voice. There was no need; it was obvious who she was. No other woman in recent times uttered lines like: "I will change the soul of this country!"
Westland, wets… the political language of 19 long years ago sounded almost quaint in Richard Cottan's film, and when Geoffrey Howe and others emasculated by the leaderene joked that they'd have to be unionised to regain their self-esteem, I got confused. What was a trade union again?
Howe was played by John Sessions, so deftly I didn't know it was the great Largs wit until a check of the credits. Denis Thatcher was played by Ian McDiarmid of Dundee, ever-ready with tea and sympathy, or better still whisky and gin, though there was no sign of the Blue Stratos that Spitting Image had 'im indoors tippling. And with Edinburgh-born Duncan in charge, this government appeared to be in the short-and-curlies grip of a Scottish Raj.
Scottish and sexy. When Thatch emerged from a long and difficult meeting all tousle-haired and pouting, Duncan made her look positively post-coital. By then, my confusion had turned to complete bamboozlement. Was I becoming like Ronnie Reagan? Was I actually fancying Margaret Thatcher? I was certainly feeling sorry for her, which was remarkable enough. The Tory men were always running to the next conspiratorial pow-wow. They ran as often and as fast as Tom Cruise in any of his movies apart from Born On The Fourth Of July, which was even more remarkable considering the size of their bottoms. Maggie couldn't trust them as far as she could throw them. This would still have been a long way, and the game Hurling a Tory would definitely have won her Upper Class Twit of the Year, before disqualification on account of being a mere grocer's daughter.
Most of the men skulked behind large glasses. I couldn't tell Kenneth Baker and Douglas Hurd apart, and only got Malcolm Rifkind because of his Edinburgh Pentlands accent and John Gummer when he blubbed.
Thatch was a bigger man than all of them. She worried about this – "That's what they laugh at, isn't it? Me as a man…" – during one of several scenes with her assistant which revealed her vulnerability. These moments were a bit clunky, though I'm perfectly prepared to believe that a version of them did take place. You can't boss men about for all but the five hours you sleep ("Geoffrey, fetch my shawl… Nigel, your hair's creeping over your collar – it makes you look louche.") Actually, maybe if you were Thatcher you could.
It's a long time since I've heard a prosecutor utter the words: "I don't care how many trials it takes – we will get justice." In fact, I think I can remember exactly when: Crown Court, 1972 or maybe '73, and I was skiving double physics. The first instalment of Law & Order: UK, a British version of the American crime dependable, wasn't as dreary as double physics but it did tend to lumber about, making thuddingly obvious points.
But things perked up when Bill Paterson and Patrick Malahide appeared. Paterson is the gnarly old dog at the Crown Prosecution Service; Malahide the sleekit defence barrister who, asked how he sleeps at night by the righteous prosecutor, sniffs: "In a gorgeous handmade bed imported from Sweden." Both have been round the police procedural block many times and could yet bring credibility to Law & Order: UK, which is asking us to believe in Bradley Walsh, once of Corrie , the Lotto and assorted light entertainment fluff, as a "detective's detective".
The Scottish documentarist Sue Bourne has a gently inquisitive eye which manages to stay the right side of intrusive. But I found footage of one of the funerals featured in Love, Life, Death In A Day impossible to watch. This was Martin, who'd died of a heart condition aged 26. His distraught brother David blamed himself for the tragedy; his father Steve said: "They say time's a healer. I don't think so."
The film tried to tell the stories behind some of the hatches, matches and dispatches in Bristol on the longest day last year. Bourne only gained access to two of the 32 funerals but had more luck at a pagan wedding (Caroline: "We fell desperately in love after two days"), a gay wedding (Shell: "My first time in a dress since school") and the nuptials of Dave and Karen. "Sixteen years ago we had the town hall booked," she said. "Now at last I can write in my diary: 'Getting married, 3 o'clock'."
The new dads included Anthony, who called his laddie Brooklyn – after the dreadful Beckhams, presumably – but seemed as mature as it was possible to be aged 16.
