Interview: Lindsay Duncan on Margaret Thatcher
What timing the BBC has. After Carol Thatcher was sacked by The One Show for saying “golliwog” off-air, more than one commentator suggested that the real reason for her dismissal was that the BBC has a “vendetta” against her mother. This Thursday, mere weeks later, BBC2 is broadcasting Margaret, a one-off drama about the fall from power of Baroness Thatcher. Supporters of the former Prime Minister may well be rolling their eyes at the prospect of an unflattering portrayal.
But Lindsay Duncan, the actress who plays her, insists that Margaret isn’t like that.
“It’s in no way a hatchet job,” she says. “It’s unsentimental but it invites you to empathise with her.” She adds that the scene that shows Mrs Thatcher deciding to resign should move even her bitterest opponents (Duncan should know, because she hates Mrs Thatcher – more of this later). “If you’re against her politics,” says Duncan, “it’s where the demon departs and the human being comes in.”
Margaret begins with the resignation speech in November 1990 of Mrs Thatcher’s deputy, Geoffrey Howe (played by John Sessions, who also provided the voice for Howe’s puppet in Spitting Image). Thereafter we see the plotting against her by members of her Cabinet, her strident efforts to reassert her authority, and sadder mom ents when she’s being advised or comforted by her husband, Denis (Ian McDiarmid, whose most famous role was as the Emperor in the Star Wars films).
There are a lot of shots of Mrs Thatcher storming down corridors while ominous-sounding music throbs on the soundtrack, and numerous other shots of her staring into the middle distance in lonely silence. It’s rather darker than The Long Walk to Finchley, the frequently humorous drama shown on BBC4 last year, starring Andrea Riseborough, about Mrs Thatcher’s early days as a politician.
Duncan – who, aged 58, is seven years younger than Mrs Thatcher was when she resigned – admits that she didn’t watch The Long Walk to Finchley: “I was on stage at the time,” she says. (She’s perhaps best-known as a stage actress, but her television credits include Channel 4’s 2006 drama Longford and the HBO/BBC co-production Rome.)
She did plenty of other preparation for playing Mrs Thatcher, though. She read the two-part biography by John Campbell (who acted as a consultant for this drama), and employed a dialect coach to help her capture Mrs Thatcher’s tone. “Someone’s voice to some extent is the story of their life, and hers did change,” says Duncan. “In the Fifties she had that very clipped, careful voice, then in the Eighties, when she was really flying, her voice deepened, because she was so powerful and confident.”
Duncan is at pains to make clear that her portrayal of Mrs Thatcher is “not an impression”, though. She didn’t try to look and sound precisely like Mrs Thatcher. “Simply to impersonate her is a kind of dead end, it’s death to the imagination,” she says.
McDiarmid makes a similar point. “It’s about getting that fine balance,” he says. “People do it regularly now: Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, Helen Mirren as the Queen. They excerpt bits of their lives but by and large they don’t try to imitate them. We know these people so well that [to do an impression of them] would inevitably look like satire, and Margaret isn’t remotely satirical.”..
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
But Lindsay Duncan, the actress who plays her, insists that Margaret isn’t like that.
“It’s in no way a hatchet job,” she says. “It’s unsentimental but it invites you to empathise with her.” She adds that the scene that shows Mrs Thatcher deciding to resign should move even her bitterest opponents (Duncan should know, because she hates Mrs Thatcher – more of this later). “If you’re against her politics,” says Duncan, “it’s where the demon departs and the human being comes in.”
Margaret begins with the resignation speech in November 1990 of Mrs Thatcher’s deputy, Geoffrey Howe (played by John Sessions, who also provided the voice for Howe’s puppet in Spitting Image). Thereafter we see the plotting against her by members of her Cabinet, her strident efforts to reassert her authority, and sadder mom ents when she’s being advised or comforted by her husband, Denis (Ian McDiarmid, whose most famous role was as the Emperor in the Star Wars films).
There are a lot of shots of Mrs Thatcher storming down corridors while ominous-sounding music throbs on the soundtrack, and numerous other shots of her staring into the middle distance in lonely silence. It’s rather darker than The Long Walk to Finchley, the frequently humorous drama shown on BBC4 last year, starring Andrea Riseborough, about Mrs Thatcher’s early days as a politician.
Duncan – who, aged 58, is seven years younger than Mrs Thatcher was when she resigned – admits that she didn’t watch The Long Walk to Finchley: “I was on stage at the time,” she says. (She’s perhaps best-known as a stage actress, but her television credits include Channel 4’s 2006 drama Longford and the HBO/BBC co-production Rome.)
She did plenty of other preparation for playing Mrs Thatcher, though. She read the two-part biography by John Campbell (who acted as a consultant for this drama), and employed a dialect coach to help her capture Mrs Thatcher’s tone. “Someone’s voice to some extent is the story of their life, and hers did change,” says Duncan. “In the Fifties she had that very clipped, careful voice, then in the Eighties, when she was really flying, her voice deepened, because she was so powerful and confident.”
Duncan is at pains to make clear that her portrayal of Mrs Thatcher is “not an impression”, though. She didn’t try to look and sound precisely like Mrs Thatcher. “Simply to impersonate her is a kind of dead end, it’s death to the imagination,” she says.
McDiarmid makes a similar point. “It’s about getting that fine balance,” he says. “People do it regularly now: Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, Helen Mirren as the Queen. They excerpt bits of their lives but by and large they don’t try to imitate them. We know these people so well that [to do an impression of them] would inevitably look like satire, and Margaret isn’t remotely satirical.”..