A new look at Maggie on the BBC
Lindsay Duncan's screen persona, which could be summarised as "posh totty ice maiden" – sexy in a forbidding, patrician kind of way – does nothing to prepare me for the warm, down-to-earth actress who greets me over a platter of iced fairy cakes. "I had better not at this point," she says when offered the gateau. "Too much sugar and too much coffee and you start talking absolute bollocks."
She is slighter than I imagined, and somehow translucent in the sunshine pouring into the room – a long way from the ice queen persona that stuck to her from roles as the predatory Marquise de Merteuil in the original RSC production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the Machiavellian Servilia in HBO's costume epic Rome. Coolly distant characters written by Harold Pinter and Stephen Poliakoff have added credentials that must have made her a shoo-in for playing Margaret Thatcher. Not that the BBC were looking for an aloof ice-maiden for their new drama about the rise and fall of Britain's first female prime minister, explains Robert Cooper, executive producer of Margaret.
"Other film portrayals by other excellent actresses have tended towards the ice maiden. Deep thoughtful voice, totally controlled, political Margarets. We wanted the Margaret we glimpse in the memoirs of her ex-colleagues, friends and enemies – the explosive, instinctive, ruthless Margaret of the political jungle."
Indeed, the explosive nature of this Iron Lady might surprise those who think they know both Thatcher and Duncan. The 120-minute drama, written by Richard Cottan (Hancock and Joan and Wallander) centres on her removal from office by the Conservative Party in November 1990. As Nigel Lawson asks in his book, The View from Number 11: "No Conservative Prime Minister since Neville Chamberlain in 1940 had left office other than at the behest of either the electorate or the doctors. How was it that the first to be obliged to do so was Margaret Thatcher, one of the most dominant Prime Ministers ever, in vigorous health, enjoying a huge majority in the House of Commons, and with a record of three election victories and no defeats?"..
Read entire article at Independent (UK)
She is slighter than I imagined, and somehow translucent in the sunshine pouring into the room – a long way from the ice queen persona that stuck to her from roles as the predatory Marquise de Merteuil in the original RSC production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the Machiavellian Servilia in HBO's costume epic Rome. Coolly distant characters written by Harold Pinter and Stephen Poliakoff have added credentials that must have made her a shoo-in for playing Margaret Thatcher. Not that the BBC were looking for an aloof ice-maiden for their new drama about the rise and fall of Britain's first female prime minister, explains Robert Cooper, executive producer of Margaret.
"Other film portrayals by other excellent actresses have tended towards the ice maiden. Deep thoughtful voice, totally controlled, political Margarets. We wanted the Margaret we glimpse in the memoirs of her ex-colleagues, friends and enemies – the explosive, instinctive, ruthless Margaret of the political jungle."
Indeed, the explosive nature of this Iron Lady might surprise those who think they know both Thatcher and Duncan. The 120-minute drama, written by Richard Cottan (Hancock and Joan and Wallander) centres on her removal from office by the Conservative Party in November 1990. As Nigel Lawson asks in his book, The View from Number 11: "No Conservative Prime Minister since Neville Chamberlain in 1940 had left office other than at the behest of either the electorate or the doctors. How was it that the first to be obliged to do so was Margaret Thatcher, one of the most dominant Prime Ministers ever, in vigorous health, enjoying a huge majority in the House of Commons, and with a record of three election victories and no defeats?"..