LONDON – In the final moments of the new mini-series “This Britain,” Boris Johnson, the tired and glamorous British prime minister, stares out the window at 10 Downing Street and falls back on Shakespeare as usual. .
“This lucky plot, this earth, this kingdom, this England,” says Johnson, who is played by Kenneth Branagh in the series, a six-part television series about Britain’s challenge with the coronavirus pandemic.
“We used to leave it there, you know,” he says, turning to his worried wife, Carrie (Ophelia Lovibond), who is holding their newborn baby. “Forget the rest.”
But Johnson went on to recount the last part of John of Gaunt’s deathbed contemplation from “Richard II,” with a rebuke of the damned king. “That England, which will not conquer others,” he said, “has made a shameful conquest on its own.”
It is a coda that fits a much talked about show in the UK, a series that chronicles the everyday heroism of Britons during the pandemic, but also the downfall of their leaders and how those failures contributed to a dilution response that supposedly deepened national suffering and led to unnecessary additional deaths.
“This England,” which debuted with steady ratings Wednesday on Sky Atlantic in the UK, chronicles, almost day by day, how the first wave of the pandemic swept the country. For many, the timing is curious, as the latest wave of the virus hasn’t even died down yet.
Michael Winterbottom, the British documentary filmmaker who wrote the screenplay with Kieron Quirke, said that he sees the show as a “composite of many people’s experiences”, from Johnson and his mentors to the doctors and nurses – and above all, of the dying – in overflowing hospitals and nursing homes.
“The goal is to be human and I think humane,” Winterbottom said in a joint interview with Branagh. “To honor and acknowledge this amazingly painful loss.” To all the confusion and blunders of the government, he added, “There’s a sense that everyone is doing their best.”
Inevitably, however, “This England” shows everyone the underdog. Trapped in the fog of a mysterious illness, some in the government, like Johnson, initially underestimated the risk. Others are forced to make bad personal choices, like the prime minister’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, who drove 260 miles, violated lockdownto visit his family when the virus hit.
Work on “This England” began in June 2020, not long after the first wave swept across the country, and scenes of despair in ambulances and hospital intensive care units had already begun. appear immediately. Much of the commentary on the show in the UK has focused on whether it’s too soon to dramatize all of this.
Nearly 300 people died from Covid-19 in the UK for seven days ending September 17; More than 4,000 people were hospitalized. The government is still calling on people to get booster injections. Johnson has evade the office just two months ago after a scandal ended Downing Street parties lock rule violation.
The outcry by the parties does not appear in the film, instead ending with wrong trip Cummings arrives at his parents’ home in the north of England after his wife contracted Covid. This shortened timeline quoted the Financial Times as claiming that the show “creates the unusual feat of feeling both early and old at the same time.”
Winterbottom admits that the show was cut for the first time, and that some might prefer the cooler perspective that comes with the gap, which could be found in future pandemic books or movies. But his goal is to do a kind of national trauma diary, he said. “By getting up close,” he notes, “you can get a fresher look.”
The other big debate was about Branagh’s performance as Johnson. The 61-year-old Oscar-winning actor donned a blonde wig, prosthetic legs and padding to take on the 58-year-old politician’s shaky look.
Some critics praise Branagh to highlight Johnson’s distinctive gait and movements. Again dismiss it as an impersonation that recalls the puppets in “Spitting Image,” a British television show that satirized public figures of the 1980s and ’90s.
Branagh, who played real-life characters including Franklin D. Roosevelt and German SS officer Reinhard Heydrich, say that he and the writers argued about how he should try to imitate Johnson. They concluded that the former prime minister was too alive in people’s minds to stray far from OG
“With someone so prominent in the public eye,” Branagh said, “I think it’s harder to serve an audience with something very, very different — stylized and abstract.”
As for Johnson’s inner life, Branagh says he has read all of the former prime minister’s books, including his biography of Winston Churchill, as well as his newspaper columns for The Daily Telegraph. He saw Johnson as a sort of “poet-politician,” ambitious and combative, but also emotionally isolated from those around him by the heavy weight of his work.
That is carried over to production. “I didn’t really make small talk with the other actors,” Branagh recalls. “It was as if there was a sense that you must be burdened, and if you are burdened, you must be left alone.”
Branagh watched Johnson hustle through the House of Commons to capture his distinctive forward leaning posture. He said that he was particularly impressed by One video in which Johnson, then mayor of London, knocked out a 10-year-old boy playing rugby during a visit to Japan. “Strong forward intensity, almost unstoppable, is just part of the propulsion,” Branagh said.
But “This England” also offers a sympathetic portrayal of a man whose personal life is in turmoil. Between crisis meetings and staying up late to soothe a crying baby, Johnson is portrayed as the one who complains of leaving voicemail messages to his grown children. It hints at a painful rift after Johnson divorced his second wife, Marina, and moved in with Carrie, who was a former Tory Party communications assistant.
“This England” also captures the cramped, suffocating working environment of Downing Street, which has been likened to the prime minister’s home and the seat of the British government. There are photos that follow the assistants on foot and talk about pressing state issues, reminiscent of the Aaron Sorkin series “west wing. “The quarters almost became deadly after Johnson himself Covid signed the contract and was injured in the intensive care unit for three days.
To the extent that there are heroes and villains, the show clearly ranks Cummings in the black hat category. Played by Simon Paisley Day, he is portrayed as arrogant, entitlement, and contemptuous of his co-workers. Winterbottom said that the producers contacted all the principals to collect their accounts.
As the show pulled the camera out of Downing Street, “This England” abruptly turned from a political procedure to a tragedy. There are a lot of scenes in hospitals and nursing homes, some of which were shot in a real nursing home with actual residents and nursing staff who actually reenacted their experience.
“Our starting point was to make things as accurate as possible, as authentic as possible,” says Winterbottom.
It adds a heartbreaking depiction of the pressures on healthcare workers, and the fear, pain and often lonely death of those on ventilators. By the final episode, it’s easy to see why a heartbroken Johnson would stand by the window, looking at the cold dawn and lamenting how a disease had invaded his “planted island”. any.
