Steve Coogan revealed the scene he insisted on cutting (Image: Channel 4)
Steve Coogan has revealed the one scene that he insisted on cutting from new series Brian and Maggie.
The executive producer and actor, who played Brian Walden, said he wanted his character to be less enamoured with than the writer’s portrayal had originally suggested. Admitting that he’d been accused of “woke airbrushing”, he defended that he’d wanted to ensure the Channel 4 drama seemed “balanced”.
A line where Walden declared that Thatcher was “worth a hundred of them” was replaced by a scene where he merely “raised his glass to her” instead.
Coogan said: “I did [change the scene], yes – I’m not going to lie. I didn’t want it to be some sort of rehabilitation [of her]. I thought it was too syrupy for Brian to say [‘She’s worth a hundred of them’] after having stuck the knife in. I wanted it to be something which was balanced.”
Harriet Walter hit out at the late former Prime Minister (Image: -)
Behind the scenes, the two main characters’ opinions of Thatcher were anything but “balanced” – even when it came to the woman who played her. Harriet Walter confessed that when she’d seen the real-life version of the woman she was acting as, on TV back in the 1970s and 80s, she’d “thrown things at the telly” and “broken things” in frustration.
Meanwhile, Steve agreed: “It was a nightmare having to hear [Thatcher’s] voice for ten years.”
The two-part drama is a portrayal of the complex friendship that evolved between the Prime Minister and political journalist Brian Walden in real life.
Intriguingly, Walden had been a former Labour MP, while Thatcher, of course, was passionately Conservative.
However, Walden, who claimed he was “flattered into” becoming a Labour minister and that it may not truly have been for him, bonded with Thatcher over their shared beliefs in the value of meritocracy and hard work.
Both had started out in state schools, won Oxford scholarships, and as Steve Coogan pointed out, “risen to the top of their professions” despite possible early adversity.
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“He was more enamoured with her than she was with him,” Steve commented, adding that the PM was more “curious” about him.
“An interesting part of the story beyond the politics was that they were connected by feeling like outsiders,” he continued.
In the end, however, Brian betrayed the friendship he shared with her by challenging her decisions in a brutal showdown on live TV, the portrayal of which will have Channel 4 viewers on the edge of their seats.
Steve concluded that, in the end, “Brian decided to stick the knife in – either for noble journalistic reasons or to save his own skin, depending on your perspective.”