Brian and Maggie (Channel 4) | channel4.com
Idris Elba: Our Knife Crime Crisis (BBC One) | iPlayer
Paradise (Disney+)
Mo (Netflix)
There’s no mistaking the look of 1970s-80s Britain in a television drama. Colours like the inside of an old teapot. Clothes evoking a fashion show at a jumble sale. Hair lacquered so stiff it could withstand a nuclear blast. Brian and Maggie a new two-part Channel 4 drama by James Graham, is based on Margaret Thatcher’s final 1989 TV interview as Conservative prime minister, conducted with her regular interrogator and supporter, Labour MP turned political interviewer Brian Walden.
Returning to the era Graham covered in Sherwood, and directed by Stephen Frears, it sees Harriet Walter deliver her Thatcher (now de rigueur for thespians; like Lady Macbeth, it must be done!). Steve Coogan plays Walden, head bobbing, clever eyes darting, as he presses the PM about her chancellor Nigel Lawson’s resignation two days earlier, and one of her backbenchers calling her “off her trolley”, in an interview that sounded the death knell for her leadership. “Betrayal!” Thatcher hisses afterwards. In real life, Thatcher and Walden never spoke again.
Brian and Maggie is Frost/Nixon with added handbagging. Based on material from Rob Burley’s book Why Is This Lying Bastard Lying to Me?: 25 Years of Searching for the Truth on Political TV, it’s also a tribute to the long-form TV political interview. Mainly, though, it’s about the implosion of friendship – and meritocratic kinship – between the state-educated politician and presenter. Walden is shown compromising himself by writing speeches for Thatcher: “You never do shake it off, do you? That feeling one has of being an outsider,” she says to Walden in a cosy tête-à-tête.
On the downside, the rapport between Thatcher and Walden (“She actually answers the bloody question – I find that refreshing!”) doesn’t always cut through. Giant political beasts of the time are reduced to cameos. The exposition is swamping (explaining who Walden is; what Weekend World, his London Weekend Television show, is). After all the buildup, the interview – Thatcher’s broadcasting high noon – proves anticlimactic, only shocking for the time: which is fine as a fact, but not as the climax of a TV drama.
For all that, it’s a good watch. Graham’s love-hate relationship with the 80s continues to be bracing. I enjoyed Thatcher and her press secretary, Bernard Ingham (Paul Clayton), sniping together (“He’s a journalist. Out for himself. They all are”). Crucially, Maggie herself doesn’t collapse into caricature. Walter doesn’t resemble Thatcher – not the tiniest bit – but she somehow makes you feel her, warts and all.
There is a horrible moment in Idris Elba: Our Knife Crime Crisis (BBC One). Footage shows 16-year-old Ronan Kanda walking home in Wolverhampton and two boys chasing after him, one brandishing a sword. Kanda – mistaken for someone else – was murdered in 2022. As this documentary points out, in the past decade, knife crime (which includes machetes and swords) in the UK has almost doubled. Last year, an average of four people were killed every week.
Elba (The Wire, Hijack) speaks to survivors, former offenders and grieving families of victims. Kanda’s mother movingly describes how, when she saw the sword that killed her son, she fainted. Elsewhere, Elba speaks with King Charles (a Prince’s Trust grant helped finance the actor’s teenage training) and meets Keir Starmer, before and after the general election. (Elba looks palpably unimpressed when extra funding for knife crime initiatives isn’t included in Rachel Reeves’s recent budget.)
The actor is campaigning for a ban on everything bar kitchen knives, and wants to correct misinformation about knife crime being a race issue: the documentary states that 69% of people convicted for carrying a knife are white. The issue is complex and systemic, taking in poverty, the rise in school exclusions, lack of funding for effective mentoring schemes, and young people carrying blades for protection. Of his own involvement, Elba shrugs and says: “I’m an amplification device.” This is a harrowing but measured documentary, determined to make important points calmly.
At first glance, new off-kilter US thriller Paradise (Disney+) seems aptly named. It’s brought to you by Dan Fogelman, who created the much-adored, ultra-emotional family drama This Is Us, and it stars This Is Us alumnus Sterling K Brown as Xavier Collins, a widower, single father and special agent living in a suburban utopia of crisp blue skies, golden sunshine and white picket fences. Soon enough, maverick US president Cal Bradford (James Marsden), the man Collins was supposed to protect, is found dead with his skull caved in.
“Whodunnit?” is just the first question. “Who’s behind everything else?” is the second. Did the president really just tell Collins it didn’t hurt that he was black? Why are people paying for groceries with bulky bracelets? Why is Collins perma-furious? Riddle piles upon riddle, and that’s not counting the giant, discombobulating early twist (no spoilers).
On the strength of the first few episodes (of eight), Marsden, who keeps appearing in flashback, is only a credible president if you buy into the idea of Bill Clinton with a sprinkle of Ryan Seacrest, but the result is strangely interesting. Julianne Nicholson, who won an Emmy for playing Lori in Mare of Easttown, is a billionaire lady tech-bro (tech-sis?) carrying her own dark emotional load. Thus far, I find Paradise guilty of weird outbursts of soapiness, but with enough else (anger, mysteries, unease) to keep it interesting.
Over on Netflix, the second and final series of Mo, the US comedy-drama created by comedians Mo Amer and Ramy Youssef, about a man of Palestinian heritage caught up in US asylum red tape (Amer portrays Mo; the show is loosely based on his real-life experiences).
Mo, like Amer, is originally from Kuwait, and he and his family waited more than two decades for asylum in Houston, Texas, before he was involuntarily carted off to Mexico, becoming stateless. So Mo is complicated, especially considering what’s happening with immigration in Trump’s America right now. The show somehow manages to combine serious observations (detention centres; guns at borders) and silliness (backchat; street food; lucha libre wrestling). At times it gets too busy, but Amer’s comic energy is astonishing.
Star ratings (out of five)
Brian and Maggie ★★★★
Idris Elba: Our Knife Crime Crisis ★★★★
Paradise ★★★
Mo ★★★
What else I’m watching
Vietnam: The War That Changed America
(Apple TV+)
Penetrating series chronicling one of the longest wars in history, featuring in-depth interviews with military veterans and civilians, and rare archive footage.
The Night Agent
(Netflix)
Second series of the bingeable American action-conspiracy thriller about top secret intelligence operatives. Gabriel Basso stars.
When Bob Marley Came to Britain
(BBC Two)
As part of a wider celebration marking the 80th anniversary of the late reggae artist’s birth, this warm, intriguing documentary explores Marley’s affection for the UK and his experiences on these shores.
