The Deal - are all dramas about New Labour doomed to be rubbish?

Obviously, I thought The Project was rubbish as well.

Very Brideshead revisited at the start fantastic pantomime all the way through.

Not a great script, but some nice touches. I did think it got a certain something about new Labour vs. old Labour pretty well through the internal drama of Gordon Brown. I didn't buy the idea of Blair as leader in 1994 (too young, prattish and flimsy) and time has shown me how this was both wrong and right.

I liked the scenes of the Scottish MPs on the night train back home.

David Morrissey = pretty much classic in anything he appears in, but can Brown be THAT lacking in warmth as a human being? And the Blair-as-ingenue thing was laid on pretty thick.

I was entertained throughout. I particularly liked the comedically sinister "John Smith - the puppetmaster." Absolute tosh nonetheless, but the scene with Blair and Brown saying "comrades" in silly voices was quite affecting, as was the funeral.

B-but Nathan, I warmed much more to Brown than Blair (in real life as well as in the film). Maybe I just like cold brooding fishes.

Well hey, you MOVED to Scotland so no surprise there.

Not really in anyway enlightening, but a damned entertaining view. It was amazing how quickly the actors inhabited their roles (though Peter Mandelson was written very thinly and seemed to be the biggest example of Moustache acting I've ever seen). When Dexter Fletcher popped up as Charlie Whelan we all went "What!!!" round our gaff, hoping for a Press Gang New Labour crossover.

Still, Frears did a good job in my book with lousy material.

What about the way they hinted that Mandelson was hot for Blair?

Where was Alistair Campbell in all this anyway? I know he wasn't on the scene officially at that time but surely he already knew Blair well at this stage? He was the character I was most looking forward to seeing but appeared to have been written out altogether (other than a short clip of footage featuring the real thing, but as a journo not uber-spin doctor).

What about the way they hinted that Mandelson was hot for Blair?
Wha? Must've been v subtle, but there was onviously a 'homosocial' angle to the Blair/Brown alliance.
Apparently Frears is doing a sequel, but really it needed to be much longer to convey the passing of time better, and how Britain changed, why Thatcher was popular and why Brown Kinnock and Smith were not/would not have been.

"he's really good.... good in the house" IN BED. obv "good looking".

It was hard to take seriously, cos it's got all those compressed "this is the important thing that's just happened" lines.

there were too many "that Mandelson's a bit of a pouf" lines

'I always get comrade wrong' (can't remember the exact quote just woke up).

actually matt, i don't think AC was that involved before tony became leader. i quite enjoyed it, although the amount of anacronisms was shocking (we see brown winning in 83, other candidate behind him seems to be sporting a lib dem golden rosette, many shots of v modern looking london busses, tony's hair being *no way* long enough in '83). i think the blair-as-ingenue wasn't too overstated, but where was cherie, surely the deal they had where the first to win a seat got on with it, whilst the other supported them was almost as important?

the bit where tony picked up his guitar had us guffawing round our house though...

nice shots of trimdon too ;)

also, the similaarity between blair as played and rik mayall as alan b'stard was rather shocking (if scarily appropriate)

It was very boarding school actually, Blair as 11-year old mildly sycophantic fag to Brown's dark and moody but DOTH NOT CARE heavy-hitting fourth-former.

I like the idea that the night before he died, John Smith and Gordon Brown ate hot dogs on Waterloo Bridge, where Smith told Brown that he was no longer The Chosen One, passing the crown to Blair, Hamlet-style. (Even if there was an under-construction Gherkin in the background).

Cherie was there, but she was a sketchy character who was only really there in one or two scenes. There was that weird bit when Blair's kid ran in only to be shushed up by Mandelson... apparently for no reason other than to say Everyone Here Is Inhuman And Sinister Now DO YOU SEE???

I got put off by Blair's enormous nose at some points. It seemed to get bigger as time went on (was this deliberate?)

Also, can anyone confirm whether that pre-funeral TV interview with Mandelson in which he said "It's not the time for me to speculate on who should stand as leader, but we need someone who's going to get middle England's housewives wet" was based on a real transcript? If it was, it was truly astonishingly brazen.

guitar chuckles, check. rik mayall moments, check.

Can anyone confirm that the "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" was actually coined by Brown for Blair's speech. This is the single most important telly fact ever and I need to know NOW.

Most overrated phrase ever?

but tremendously important in that it was absolutely everywhere - it was a key phrase of the time - even I remember it being used as a gag/satirical catchphrase at a time when I didn't really know who Tony Blair or Gordy Brown was. The hollowness of it was what made it resonate - if you like.

I hate the 90s.

I was it was a classic. As a piece of drama, it moved pacily and had a good mix of gags, wry bits that caused me to smile much and I cwied too.

Obv, I am a Blair hata and whilst no big fan of Brown, would rather he be leader. It was a party political broadcast for the Gordon Brown Party, and I think that is a good thing.

I was pleased they focussed on James Bulger's death as a crucial point in the transformation of Blair; that's when he moved into the big league within the party with his handling of that. I had also forgotten how embarassing Kinnock's opening to the Sheffield Rally was; I choose to remember the spellbinding oratory he gave after that which will stay with me forever.

I had also forgotten how embarassing Kinnock's opening to the Sheffield Rally was
!! this burned into my brain.

You had to be there ;-)

Apparently BBC parliament are showing whole election night broadcasts from back in the day. Last week they showed 1970, this week I think it's the first election in 74.

Anyone want to do a 1979 election day piss up. That would be ther rockingest thing evah!

blimey, that sounds likea psephologist's wet dream

(NB i consider myself to be somewhat of an amateur psephologist)

I specialised in psephology in my degree. Ph34r me.

Can anyone confirm that the "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" was actually coined by Brown for Blair's speech. This is the single most important telly fact ever and I need to know NOW.

Well, Brown partisan Charlie 'Dexter Fletcher' Whelan says so. But what genius thought up 'Education Education Education'?

Matt DC, I've seldom disagreed with you so much.

I consider myself someone who is not impressed by people who think they look smart using the word psephology.

thoughts:

has dexta fletcha naturally put on weight since 'lock stock...'
or was that, like, method just for the role ?

is granita now doing a roarin trade ?

did someone off eastenders really show up at the end of the meeting ?
if not, what an unusual thing to have put in.

that footage that was newly made-up to look like
footage from the time (hello jon snow !) was ridiculous.

the, what's the phrase, interpolation ?
of proper old skool footage (jon smith's funeral,
thatch leaving, kinnock's post-92 trauma speech etc) was
fckng ace.

Bring back the Rock'n'Roll years.

does anyone remember THE PLOUGHMAN'S LUNCH?

According to either the Grauniad or the Indie, the Eastenders girl in question was Susan Tully AKA Michelle Fowler. So yeah, apparently.

Quite why Blair thought this would be much of a hit with the voters is beyond me.

Ironically, Granita closed last week.

It is reopening as Granita 2, a tabloid version which will have a media jobs fayre on a Monday, a special night for social workers on Tuesday, a school open evening on a Wednesday and an internet cafe on a Thursday.

Are you lying?

It's no Seaford Dog lie.

does anyone remember THE PLOUGHMAN'S LUNCH?

Yeb, well no, I was three when it came out, but yeb, seen. Much better sense of time and place (underrated qualities) and goes further - apparently McEwan had more or less written it before the Falklands war and they kind of chucked it in, and the Tory Party Conference '82, for added topicality. Was one of the first C4 dramas - almost eggackley 20 yrs ago, practically to the week.
Problem with 'The Deal' was that in the absense of the old 'Play Today' or 'Film on Four' format it got mad hype and everyone had already had it digested for them 20 times plus seen all tha main clips.

If, that is, they are sad, Late Review watching gets like moi.

But the real title to drop is Trevor 'The Comedians' Griffiths' 'Bill Brand', a series about Old Labour shown in the summer of 76, ie just b4 the IMF debacle. I haven't seen, but it sounds frickin top. God I should get a blog.

oh yeah i remember that penman loved bill brand!!

i only tht of PL cz some of it was filmed AT the tory party conference (w/o asking, j.pryce wandering around on the conference floor)

(at the time i tht it was terribly dour and up itself to be honest)

That seems to be how it was received, but it's a good history lesson. What's with the PillBox anyway? But that's reassuring, I didn't just *make it up* out of assorted clutter. They have that kind of thing in a BFI bunker nr Charlotte St. You can pay to watch old Ken Loach agitprop on 16mm.

I saw 5 minutes, and I couldn't decide if it was a slap-stick comedy or not. "so, Gordon tell me about this Romanian princess of yours", nudge nudge wink wink, manic grin. And Tony welling up with pride after Gordo's first speech "That's my mate, that is". Still, I'd say it was slighty better than the 5 minutes of Boudica that I saw. I watched American Pie.

The Mandelson character would make a great Bond villain.

Mandy: You have one last request.
Bond: To guarantee funding for the NHS.
Mandy: Agreed. (leaves room)
Mandy (to musclebound sidekick): Feed him to the piranhas.