However, the facial prosthetics are distractingly hideous and resemble the pale mask worn by killer Michael Myers in the Halloween movies. Johnson’s left eye, in particular, seems to be melting. On the other hand, maybe my own vision was influenced by the red fog that settled as I watched the first three episodes. The litany of arrogance, incompetence, and callousness that Winterbottom, his co-writer Kieron Quirke and co-director Julian Jarrold remind us arouses a powerful sense of anger.
Is it too early to pick at the existential crust of the past 30 months? Quite the opposite. The first few minutes of episode one sum up a lot of things we’re in danger of forgetting. Do you remember the illegal prorogation of parliament? The way Dominic Cummings abruptly fired the trusted assistants of ministers and hired “superforecasters” with dodgy views on eugenics? Breaking the Arcuri Affair?
No sooner does Boris win his massive parliamentary majority than he swells with his mistress to Mustique, before divorcing his wife, while much of the country drowns under flash flooding. In it, Winterbottom combines ominous images of bat bodies and Chinese wet markets.
Boris delivers John of Gaunt’s This England speech by Richard II – including the words “this fortress built by nature for her self against infection” – on Brexit Day, shortly after Britons returning from Wuhan are quarantined in Birkenhead. The first episode ends with Boris sheepishly leaving messages for his kids – well, some of them – telling them that Dad is engaged again and that a new stepbrother is on the way.
Sir Kenneth Branagh as Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ophelia Lovibond as his wife Carrie Johnson (Phil Fisk/Sky/PA)
/ PA mediumIn the second episode, the juxtapositions get more shocking. A calendar countdown of headlines between scenes shows the number of recorded versus actual cases, first UK death, and so on. Images of international lockdowns clash with images of crowds at the Six Nations Cup, Cheltenham, Liverpool vs Atletico Madrid football match. In the dramatized scenes, scientists and hospital and care home workers see the crisis looming, while Downing Street broods over focus groups and the illusion of control.
Boris van Branagh, rippling bits of Shakespeare and Churchillian history, seems more like an unfortunate hostage of events and his own inadequacy than an outright villain. The same goes for Andrew Buchan’s Alan Partridge-esque Matt Hancockalthough Winterbottom makes it clear that years of Conservative government have left the UK woefully unprepared for a pandemic.
However, the skull-like Cummings (a chilling Simon Paisley Day) and his skinhead henchman Lee Cain (Derek Barr) come across as outright villains interested only in imposing their own will and agenda. The portrait of Carrie Johnson (Ophelia Lovibond) is also quite harsh, leaving her floating in a bubble of self-esteem through the crisis, negligent of decency, safety or her dog Dilyn’s incontinence.
The dialogue is necessarily a little on the nose at times (“I’ve been told to protect myself because of my COPD”), but it’s hard to fault the sheer scope, detail, and scathing moral thrust of this drama. The third episode shows bus drivers and caregivers getting sick, the chilling decision to discharge untested patients from hospitals to care homes, and takes us to the start of the first lockdown.
I couldn’t watch Cummings’ unforgivable trip to Barnard Castle in one sitting, because it could have blown my head. But this is wonderful television, history distilled onto the screen. Look at it and cry.
All episodes available on Sky from September 28th