Steve Coogan has revealed that one scene in his new drama Brian and Maggie ended up being cut from the show because he thought it was “too kind” to Margaret Thatcher.
In the Channel 4 drama, from Dear England and Sherwood writer James Graham, Coogan, 59, plays Brian Walden, the Labour MP turned TV interviewer who famously grilled the former prime minister in 1989, an encounter that triggered the downfall of the Iron Lady.
Harriet Walter, 74, stars as Thatcher, who has become one of the most controversial PMs in British history thanks to her part in the death of Britain’s mining industry and her attitudes around homosexuality, which were enshrined in law through section 28, a law that prohibited local authorities from “promoting” homosexuality in schools or in the community.
Coogan, who was a 10-year-old living in Manchester when Thatcher came into power in 1979, said in a new interview: “Of course I had huge antipathy towards Thatcher. I was very anti-Thatcher.”
He told Radio Times: “And the one thing that I was worried about in this drama was being too compassionate because of her legacy… and because at the end, she was definitely a victim of sexism. Whether she knew it or not. Although she probably didn’t see it like that because she didn’t want to ally herself with ideological feminism.
“In fact, in the edit we cut something because I thought it was a bit too kind and we wanted to remind people that there was this damage.”
Coogan added: “She had vision and zeal, but she lacked empathy. Now, she’d probably be diagnosed with some sort of disorder.”
A new trailer for the series recently unveiled Walter’s transformation into Thatcher. The actor is best known for playing Lady Caroline Collingwood in Succession and Lady Margaret Pole in Wolf Hall.
In a teaser for the two-parter, Walter embodies Thatcher’s mannerisms and helmet-style hairdo and can be seen wearing the prime minister’s high-neck blouses, pearl necklaces and decorative brooches.
Elsewhere in an interview with Radio Times, Walter said she thinks Thatcher would have “detested” her.
“I’m domestically impractical, politically Left-wing and thoroughly unreliable,” she said. “In my youth, I went on demos and picket lines. Plus, my coming from a fairly privileged background. We would have had zero to talk about. Maybe clothes, I suppose.”
Brian and Maggie premieres on Wednesday 29 January at 9pm on Channel 4.
