The trailer for This England, Michael Winterbottom’s take on the UK government’s response to Covid — featuring Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson — has been greeted with measured, temperate consideration. The world is prepared to give it a chance.
I’m joking, of course. “i for one will not be watching it that man has literally killed this country off why are you celebrating him,” A Person writes on Twitter. “Wtaf! A TV series about THAT!” A Nother Person follows up. “I have no words other than cancel your Sky subscription! Sickening!” Others went further still. “Branagh’s Leni Riefenstahl moment,” One More Person says, referring to the Nazi propagandist.
Well, you never know. It is certainly possible the film-makers have decided to mount a Boris Johnson hagiography. This would, however, constitute a political swivel from the driving force. Greed, Winterbottom’s last film, was a savage attack on the super-rich that ended with Steve Coogan’s Bransonesque tycoon getting eaten by his own lion. Here he codirects with Julian Jarrold and cowrites with Kieron Quirke. The Sky series may not be a demolition, but it seems unlikely to be any sort of celebration.
The trailer does little to clear up the show’s stance. The dominant voice is Branagh indulging in something close to self-reference. The Northern Irish multihyphenate emerged first as an interpreter of Shakespeare, most notably as director and star of a 1989 take on Henry V.
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Here, in the romper-room tones of Johnson, he revisits John of Gaunt’s famous dying speech from Richard II. “This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,” and so on. That speech gives the film its potentially controversial title. Was not Johnson also prime minister of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland? Well, yes. But, following devolution, those constituent nations of the United Kingdom were largely in control of their own Covid policies. So maybe the series earns the right to filch those words from Shakespeare.
The trailer skims through a few of the opening skirmishes. The shots of Johnson and Carrie Symonds (Ophelia Lovibond), now his wife, lounging about in luxury may be an oblique reference to the Partygate scandal, but Winterbottom has confirmed the series was not revised following those revelations. Lines such as “lack of transparency” and “jobs for the boys” float over the action. Oops, another quick shot of wine drinking and beer swilling. Some arguing.
Oh there’s Simon Paisley Day as Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s controversial adviser, striding about while someone suggests he should be “reined in”. Next, to the undoubted fury of conspiracy theorists, we see Johnson being wheeled into intensive care. In the months after the prime minister’s treatment for Covid-19, the internet was alive with unconvincing allegations that the whole thing was — to quote John of Gaunt again — a blessed plot.
The trailer is, in short, constructed so as to satisfy all sides of the argument. It is also there to advertise the talents of the United Kingdom’s best make-up artists. They do a good job of making Branagh unrecognisable and a reasonable job of making him look like Boris Johnson. Having a PM with such singular characteristics — the blond mop, the crumpled suit — is an absolute gift, but, in at least one scene, Branagh looks more like another possessor of those attributes: Stanley Johnson, the PM’s dad. It hardly needs to be said that our Ken masters the unmistakable boyish burble. How much harder it would have been to summon up a less flashy politician, such as David Cameron or Jeremy Hunt.
Recent comments from Winterbottom suggest the apparent balance in the trailer may be reflective of the series itself. “It’s certainly not trying to be a hatchet job,” he said. “I’ve no idea what people will think when they see it; very few people have seen it. It’s hard to judge whether people will see it as being an attack on Boris Johnson or an attack on the government — it’s not intended as that.”
Not a hatchet job. Boo!
