Brian and Maggie: Steve Coogan reveals the one thing he admires about Margaret Thatcher

It was the most unlikely of alliances. But former Labour MP and firebrand TV inquisitor Brian Walden and Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher struck up an improbable friendship forged over a series of lengthy small-screen interviews.

Now award-winning writer James Graham (Sherwood, Quiz, Gareth Southgate’s final days in Dear England) has put the odd couple under the microscope in a new television drama, Brian and Maggie, starting tonight on Channel 4.

Starring Steve Coogan as Walden and Harriet Walter as Thatcher, the drama is directed by Bafta-winning Stephen Frears.

Walter, appointed a Dame in the 2011 Honours list, admitted she was surprised when she was first approached about the role at the end of 2023.

“I’d always switched off my TV whenever Thatcher came on,” she admitted. “During the Eighties, I couldn’t be objective about her.”

However, having seen Meryl Streep in, and as, The Iron Lady and Gillian Anderson in The Crown, she was intrigued at the possibility of playing Lady Thatcher.

“My favourite of all was Fenella Woolgar who played her in The Reckoning. She was sensationally good at Margaret’s every little tic.”

Having agreed to take the role, Harriet, 74, was assiduous in her research.

“There are some scenes in Brian and Maggie that were originally documented on YouTube,” she says. “That meant I could look at how she presented herself in the male-dominated House of Commons. I looked at anything I could find that was more personal, when she was worrying, for instance, about her look: how she wore pearls to lighten her face and big bows to soften her image.

“I also discovered a sort of lightness of touch, a bit more wit, a bit more candour in the way she spoke, her feeling that the person she was talking to was trustworthy and on her side.

“The way James has written it, there are lots of chinks in the armour that made her more interesting. So, despite my original misgivings, I decided to swallow hard and go for it.”

Working opposite Coogan, 59, was surprising, she says, because she thought it would be a laugh a minute. “But he takes his work very seriously and the on-screen results you can see are amazing.

“He doesn’t look any more like Brian Walden than I do Margaret Thatcher but I followed his cue. He got the rhythms of his speech as well as getting behind the mask and gestures. He set a very high standard. It was really rewarding to work with him. I hope he says the same about me.”

There was other help at hand. “We had a brilliant wig department under Vanessa White that created three different blonde wigs – each slightly aged to represent different stages of Margaret’s life. Costume designer Gabriela Yiaxis also helped hugely. She gave me a full padded bra and broader shoulders.”

Harriet’s dark complexion was made much more peaches and cream.

“I had contact lenses, blue eyes for when I was younger, blue/grey eyes for when I was older. I had a fake set of teeth made as Thatcher had a slight overbite, so they influenced the way I spoke.”

Harriet has always been slightly self-conscious about her voice. She once told me she was surprised she got a lot of radio work.

“Even my school reports said: ‘Harriet must do something about her voice.’ It used to be very childish and I have a sort of lisp. In fact, at one point, I thought I might be a mime artist!”

In truth, she is perhaps a little too patrician to fully capture the vocal delivery of the grocer’s daughter from Grantham (even post-elocution lessons) but acting prowess quickly trumps poshness in her performance.

“What I also discovered was that Margaret would smile with her mouth but not with her eyes. I can’t do that. I tried but I’ve watched back some of it and my eyes are always smiling.”

Overall, she says, she couldn’t help being surprised at how revolutionary it was to see footage of a room full of men in grey suits and one woman in a blue skirt and pussy-bow floppy silk blouses.

“It’s interesting to me that a woman got to be top of the team although Thatcher was no feminist sympathiser. I regret that hers has been the role model for other female Tory politicians.

“Everything about her rigidity, her personality, her public persona was about trying to prove to the boys that she could be as tough as them. Perversely, that gave feminism a bad name.

“On the other hand, she stepped into the fray. I do admire her for that. I don’t admire every step she took, her political philosophy or how she carried it out.

“And I certainly don’t admire her legacy or what she did to the country. But I do admire a woman who walked into that scenario determined to change things. I just wish she had understood that she could have done so much more to help other women into that position.”

After resigning as a Labour MP, Walden was poached by London Weekend Television to front a heavyweight political programme dedicated to the long-form interview.

His first guest: Leader of the Opposition Margaret Thatcher. An unlikely relationship developed. As her power increased, the traditional red lines of journalist and politician became blurred. Was Brian choosing friendship over integrity? Was Margaret in danger of sharing too much?

After resigning as a Labour MP, Walden was poached by London Weekend Television to front a heavyweight political programme dedicated to the long-form interview.

His first guest: Leader of the Opposition Margaret Thatcher. An unlikely relationship developed. As her power increased, the traditional red lines of journalist and politician became blurred. Was Brian choosing friendship over integrity? Was Margaret in danger of sharing too much?

After resigning as a Labour MP, Walden was poached by London Weekend Television to front a heavyweight political programme dedicated to the long-form interview.

His first guest: Leader of the Opposition Margaret Thatcher. An unlikely relationship developed. As her power increased, the traditional red lines of journalist and politician became blurred. Was Brian choosing friendship over integrity? Was Margaret in danger of sharing too much?

After resigning as a Labour MP, Walden was poached by London Weekend Television to front a heavyweight political programme dedicated to the long-form interview.

His first guest: Leader of the Opposition Margaret Thatcher. An unlikely relationship developed. As her power increased, the traditional red lines of journalist and politician became blurred. Was Brian choosing friendship over integrity? Was Margaret in danger of sharing too much?

Throughout the 80s, and all-powerful after winning successive elections, she seemed unstoppable.

But her increasing unwillingness to listen or bend to her Cabinet led to trouble in the ranks. She turned to Walden to help promote her message. But he was also becoming less certain of her judgement.

When respected Chancellor Nigel Lawson resigned in October 1989, Thatcher’s leadership teetered on the edge of full-on crisis. But she had a TV interview slated with Walden a few days later. He’d help her regain control of the narrative. After all, he was a friend. Wasn’t he?

“Theirs was a political love story of sorts,” says Coogan. “The two of them were outsiders; hence the mutual attraction above and beyond their political views.”

For his part, he was no fan of Thatcher’s. “I found her to be a very divisive figure who did untold damage to the notion of the community and the idea of people helping each other, an ‘I’m alright Jack’ philosophy which I find objectionable.

“But I will say this for her: she subjected herself on a regular basis to Brian Walden’s forensic analysis in a way that politicians don’t do anymore.

“Harriet and I are both politically unsympathetic to Thatcher. That said, 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.”

He was very familiar with Walden.

“In fact, I did his voice on Spitting Image more than 30 years ago when I started out in the business,” he says. “More recently, I watched all the interviews that Brian did with Thatcher, seeing the arc of their political relationship, her developing as a politician, him as an interrogator.”

Coogan really enjoyed working with Walter. “She’s at the top of her game, an acting giant. We first worked together, at the Royal Exchange in 1986 when I was a mere stagehand.

“It was a revolving stage, which I failed to revolve one night, leaving her stranded surrounded by nothing. Luckily, she says she doesn’t have any recollection of that. Of course, it’s haunted me for years.”

He’s full of admiration for the way she tackled Thatcher. “She captured the essence of the woman. She didn’t just do an impersonation; she got to the root of who she was.

“She did a brilliant job, and it was a huge opportunity for me to work opposite her. It was demanding because she’s so seasoned and I’m this weird hybrid with a background in comedy and a bit of drama. So, I had to step up. I thank her for raising my game.”

When Walden and Thatcher came together for their last ever interview at the end of October 1989, it is said Walden assured Thatcher he wouldn’t make capital of this.

In the event, not only did he insert the knife, he persistently twisted it during the 45-minute showdown which became a national talking point and further precipitated the unravelling of Thatcherism. In less than a year, painted into a corner by Cabinet colleagues, she was forced to stand down as prime minister.

And Brian and Maggie? They never spoke to each other again.

Brian and Maggie airs tonight at 9pm on Channel 4