‘Succession’ Star Harriet Walter To Play Margaret Thatcher In ‘Frost/Nixon’-Style Channel 4 Drama From Stephen Frears, James Graham, Steve Coogan
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: Will this lady be for turning? Succession star Harriet Walter is taking on Maggie Thatcher in splashy Channel 4 drama series Brian and Margaret, which is being directed by Stephen Frears, penned by James Graham and co-starring Steve Coogan.
Coogan’s BBC Studios-backed Baby Cow is producing. Unveiled with three weeks until the general election, the two-parter is a dramatization of the story behind and occasion of Thatcher’s last TV interview, the hugely damaging ITV grilling by her old friend Brian Walden (Coogan), which some view as the final nail in her prime ministerial coffin.
The pair were cosy in the run up to the interview and had faced each other before on the small screen but Walden – who was one of the most feared political interviewers of his day – struck several blows particularly with a line of questioning about the recent resignation of Thatcher’s chancellor, Nigel Lawson.
Thatcher stood down a year after the 1989 interview and never spoke to Walden again. The project was revealed in its infancy to Deadline a year ago by Baby Cow MD Sarah Monteith, who described a Thatcher series in development that would “say something about the nature of debate in our country.” You can watch the Thatcher-Walden interview in full below.
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