Metro, September 2022
Did you speak to No. 10, or even Boris Johnson, about This England?
We talked to quite a few people who worked at No.10 through the pandemic, but we didn’t have formal dealings. So I didn’t meet Boris, but I should imagine they’ve got a fair idea about what’s going to be in it – because it’s a record of happened.
Because of the kind of character Boris is, how difficult was it to steer This England away from satire?
The starting point was for me the research; to get a chance to talk to as many people as we could – whether it was No.10, the Department of Health, the NHS, doctors, nurses, care home workers, scientists. It felt like all these people had a different perspective on the pandemic, a different experience of it, and that was the best way to dealing with what we’ve all just lived through. So we were never going down the comedy route. We just wanted to try and represent as accurately as possible different people’s experiences – including Boris’s.
Was it quite a daunting undertaking to try and tell the full story of that first few months?
The idea was really to tell a story of people responding to an incredibly difficult situation, a novel virus spreading rapidly. And I hope This England has that sense of pace and rhythm as people are having to try and constantly catch up with the virus. Of course, you can now watch this with perspective; everyone can take a different view of what should have happened.
How difficult was it for you and Kenneth Branagh to not caricature Boris when he is inherently to most people, something of a caricature in himself.
It was quite a big challenge! I think Ken did a great job of it. With Boris, like any public figure, they have a public persona, but Boris’ feels larger than life, quite well defined visually. He is a sort of performance piece hard to replicate without doing an impression. Ken brings a weight and seriousness and we wanted to avoid making it slapstick, root Boris a little bit more and make him a more complex than the pastiches often are. So if you have a hostile opinion of Boris you probably think the series is too gentle on him. And if you love Boris you probably think that series is too hard on him.
Are his dream sequences a way of exploring that complexity?
Well, there was a lot going on his life. He was not only the leader of our country’s response to it, he was having his own experience of COVID in intensive care. He was moving in with his girlfriend, getting her pregnant, divorcing his wife, dealing with the communication gap with his children. At any time, your family and partners are the most important relationships, even if you’re a Prime Minister. And obviously, if you’re ill, and then you feel that you’ve possibly dying, that becomes even more important.
