You almost have to feel sorry for Sky. After spending 18 months building up to their big Boris Johnson drama, they end up releasing it at exactly the same time that British politics enters its own cliffhanger mode with drama that could rival any season finale.
This England – which tells the story of the start of Johnson’s premiership and the first wave of the Covid crisis – begins tonight on Sky Atlantic, starring Kenneth Branagh as Johnson and Ophelia Lovibond as Carrie. But should Sky have known better than to air it now? Generally the best real-life dramas follow a simple rule of thumb: time is on your side. Rather than rush out your first draft of history, much better to wait until the dust has settled – even if you do have Branagh on board.
Why didn’t This England screenwriter Michael Winterbottom take a lesson from The Crown head honcho Peter Morgan, who waited almost a decade after Princess Diana’s death before writing The Queen, his seminal film about Elizabeth II and her daughter-in-law? Or Russell T.
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