Steve Coogan on Brian and Maggie

Brian and Maggie, a two-part drama coming to Channel 4 next week, explores the breakdown of the unlikely friendship between veteran political inquisitor Brian Walden and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher over a bombshell interview in 1989. Here Steve Coogan, who plays the journalist and whose company Baby Cow Productions, made the show, speaks about how it came about, how he had to combat his own anti-Thatcher sentiment, and how he now reluctantly admires her drive as an outsider with determination to bring about change…

How did the idea of Brian and Maggie come about? 

I got a message from Rob Burley, who used to produce the Andrew Marr show and who wrote a book called Why Is This Lying Bastard Lying To Me? about the history of the political interview. In that book, he came across this quite meaningful friendship between Brian Walden and Margaret Thatcher which he said was quite an interesting story. 

He then said to me that he thought I should make it into a TV show and said: ‘You should play Brian Walden’. So, Sarah [Monteith, chief executive of Coogan’s production company Baby Cow] and I went for lunch with Ian Katz from Channel 4 and we pitched various things to him. As we were leaving, I said: ‘Oh, there is one more thing. It's about Brian Walden and Margaret Thatcher’ and he immediately said: ‘Oh, I want that’. 

I then called [writer’ James Graham and asked him if he would do it. He said it was right up his street and he set about it fairly soon after that. There were fits and starts along the way, but James took to it like a duck to water.

The story to me was a fascinating one, which was this political love story of sorts between a disillusioned Labour politician and Margaret Thatcher, who was quite a radical politician at the time. 

The two of them were outsiders and that’s what attracted them to each other, above and beyond their political views. I think Brian was naturally on the left, from a working-class background, and Margaret Thatcher as well was from the lower middle class, the small tradespeople background.

Then we had to then find a Margaret Thatcher. When Dame Harriet Walter agreed, I was very happy indeed. We wanted a heavy hitter and someone who could own Margaret Thatcher, because it’s sort of become a genre in itself [playing Thatcher] - like actresses giving their Lady Macbeth.

Brian and Maggie was written as a two-hander, this sort of sparring and dance that Brian and Margaret do around each other. Also to add to the mix was the fact that the historical context means that we now have some distance between ourselves and the Thatcher period… and it's now clearer to see it as an era and see her as a phenomenon and look at her legacy in a slightly different way. 

Personally, I found her to be a very divisive figure and I think that she did untold damage to the notion of community and the idea of people helping each other and I think that was diametrically opposed and phrased by my parents as the philosophy of ‘I’m all right Jack’. It was the idea of ‘help yourself and don’t help others’ and I find that objectionable. 

I must put this caveat in here. The legacy of Thatcher – which is re-written by her admirers now as if she was the heroine – certainly for the Conservative Party forgets that they deposed her themselves. 

But I don’t agree with this rewriting of that history, her experiment in privatising all these utilities. It was no doubt that Britain needed someone to grab it by the scruff of the neck but in so doing, she threw the baby out with the bathwater because the idea of the post-war consensus of rebuilding Britain as working together as a community to make lives better for all of all was jettisoned by Margaret Thatcher and that is something I found unforgivable.

However, having said that, the fact that she was an outsider makes her a fascinating figure to me, more fascinating with the passage of time because of the antipathy and contempt with which I regarded her at the time. 

Now looking back, I look at her with a slightly different lens which is that of an outsider looking to make radical change. I don’t agree with the radical changes, but the fact that she had radical approach I think is good. She had a point of view and wanted to do things differently and that is indisputable. 

She achieved that at what cost we can all discuss, because I think the cost is too much, but that is something that needs to be recognised.

And on top of that she knew her stuff and she subjected herself on a regular basis, with Brian Walden, to forensic analysis in a way that politicians don’t do anymore. There are focus groups etc. They delegate their knowledge and then trot out a briefing, but they don’t have a full grasp of the facts and she undoubtably did. You have to acknowledge that, and I do. 

Sorry, that is the longest single answer I have ever given to a question!

Were you familiar with Brian Walden and his interview technique?

Yes, I was. I grew up knowing all about Brian Walden - he was a radical in so far as he did this long-form interview… [it] which was a more prestigious sort of single interview. 

I remember when he took over on Weekend World because I used to watch it anyway when I was  around 11 years old, I was quite  an avaricious consumer of politics at the time. The whole period of the 1980s was incredibly colourful. Even though I was anti-Thatcher, the characters in the Cabinet, it was all very vibrant and an interesting time.

So I was very familiar with Brian Walden and in fact I did his voice on Spitting Image more than 30 years ago when I started out in the business.

What research did you do to get into character?

I already felt I knew who he was, and I found I had a kind of empathy with Brian Walden – and to some extent with Margaret Thatcher. 

Although showbusiness is slightly different from academia or high-end politics, entertainment is more meritocratic - if you are good, you should get on. You need breaks, you need luck and you need talent, but the notion of being successful through hard work is a very Thatcherite sort of thing and I have a successful company now, so in some ways I am an example of the Thatcherite model of material success even though I have other concerns and I like to think I am community minded, more philanthropic, more egalitarian. 

However, what really interests me is the paradox that she and Brian Walden were outside of the establishment, which I identify with. I feel comfortable being outside the establishment, but I want to succeed in a way that the establishment has to acknowledge, and I think Brian Walden and Margaret Thatcher felt the same - which allows me to have empathy for both of them in that regard.

I watched all the interviews Brian did with Thatcher which is interesting in itself, to see the arc of their political relationship, and see her develop as a politician and him develop as an interrogator - it’s all very interesting psychologically. I read a lot of interviews as well and submerged myself in all the things you should do if you are playing a part, particularly that of a real person. I have now played 12 real people in my career.

Why do you feel this story is relevant today?

Post-war consensus was interrupted by Margaret Thatcher and her ideology. We can now look at it through the lens of history and see it in its proper context; that she came along and shook things because they were getting tired.

 The post-war dream of rebuilding Britain, the community-minded effort had soured slightly, there were all kinds of discordant relationships between the Labour Party and the unions, they had fallen out of love. It was like going through some sort of divorce. It felt like it was in constant strife. Constant tension pulling one way and then another and therefore no forward momentum and what she brought was this radical agenda which ruptured and drew a line under the post-war consensus.

The point is we can now look at this story and see where she sits in history and how we arrived to where we are now, so that’s important and that’s why it’s relevant. People need to understand what it was she represented and why it was radical and divisive. 

But it’s interesting purely on a human level because people who achieve success are fascinating and interesting. I also think it has resonance because the establishment is more in control than it was before, so there was a window of opportunity where people from modest backgrounds broke through in all walks of life. It seems to me that that has regressed.

Do you feel the disappearance of the full-length political TV interview puts democracy at risk?

I would say it’s dramatic to say that it puts democracy at risk. But I do think short form interviews do not help proper discussion and you see this online. 

They are short clips where people fight each other in interviews and things are broken down into very simple binary choices. We know life isn’t like that in reality. It shouldn’t be. All arguments ultimately have some nuance about them.

 You can only get into the nitty-gritty of a conversation by subjecting yourself to proper scrutiny which politicians don’t do any more. To Thatcher’s credit, she did and lots of other politicians did too. People like Tony Benn and Dennis Healy were quite happy to subject themselves to cross-examination and that has pretty much gone. 

However, the problem is people’s attention span, so therefore [a return to those days] looks unlikely. But it does make you look back misty-eyed at a time when people did their homework, whatever their political colours.

What was it like working opposite Harriet Walter as Margaret Thatcher?

She is at the top of her game, she is an acting giant. I did say to her that we had worked together before, at the Royal Exchange [in Manchester] in 1986 and that I was a stagehand who flew in lamps on to the stage. However, because it was a revolving stage, which I failed to revolve one night, I left her stranded… But she says she doesn’t have any recollection of that! Of course, it’s haunted me for years. 

In terms of the character, Harriet played her incredibly well because she captured the essence of Thatcher, beyond just the aesthetic. She didn’t just do an impersonation; she got to the root of who she was.

 Harriet and I are both politically antipathetic to Margaret Thatcher, but we didn’t want to do a hatchet job. If anything, we were in danger of going the other way in trying to fight against our impulses. 

It’s a testament to Harriet that she totally respected the brief of getting inside Thatcher’s head. She did a brilliant job, and it was a huge opportunity for me to work opposite her. It’s demanding because she’s so seasoned and I’m this weird hybrid with a background in comedy, but also someone who does a bit of drama. So I had to step up. So, I thank her for raising my game.

 If you could describe the show in four words, what would you say?

Ooh, crikey. I would say.. love, duty, ideology, friendship.

• Brian and Maggie is on Channel 4 at 9pm next Wednesday, January 29, with episode two streaming straight afterwards, and airing on TV at the same time the following night

Published: 22 Jan 2025