Out! Out! Out!

Bill Jones gives a good review (in both senses) of last night’s ‘Margaret’, starring the excellent Lindsay Duncan as Thatcher in late 1990.

The supporting cast were also wonderful. I agree with Bill that John Sessions as Geoffrey Howe was the best character portrayal there, and Bill lists a few others deserving of credit – I’d add Nicholas le Provost’s Douglas Hurd, Nicholas Rowe’s Malcolm Rifkind and Nigel le Vaillant’s gloriously plummy Ted Heath cameo as pretty much spot on. Oliver Cotton’s Michael Heseltine had something of the pantomime villain about him, but very entertainingly so.

I wasn’t that taken with Michael Maloney’s John Major – the voice wasn’t there, although obviously it’s hard to do that without veering into Rory Bremner territory. And Major’s personality seemed curiously absent from the portrayal. But then again, maybe that’s not far off…