Fiction struggles to rival drama of clash between Andy Burnham and Boris Johnson - Anthony Clavane

I do like a good state-of-the-nation series. Especially at the moment, when a thrilling drama about the political machinations of public life would shine a torch on our woes.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham held last-ditch talks with the Prime Minister this week aimed at securing additional financial support for the area in light of new coronavirus restrictions. Photo: Jacob King/PA WireGreater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham held last-ditch talks with the Prime Minister this week aimed at securing additional financial support for the area in light of new coronavirus restrictions. Photo: Jacob King/PA Wire
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham held last-ditch talks with the Prime Minister this week aimed at securing additional financial support for the area in light of new coronavirus restrictions. Photo: Jacob King/PA Wire

So, I was pleased to see this week’s opening episode of a state-of-the-nation series about the current political machinations in Westminster.

It had all the classic ingredients: a maverick populist leader, a theatrical press conference, a battle of wills, a conspiracy theory. The lot. Not forgetting the obligatory accusations of anti-Tory bias.

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No, I’m not talking about the new, contemporary drama Roadkill, a BBC four-parter starring Hugh Laurie and Helen McCrory.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a media briefing in Downing Street. Photo: Leon Neal/PA WirePrime Minister Boris Johnson during a media briefing in Downing Street. Photo: Leon Neal/PA Wire
Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a media briefing in Downing Street. Photo: Leon Neal/PA Wire

I’m talking about the new, contemporary drama ‘Tier and Loathing’, starring Andy Burnham and Boris Johnson.

According to the great film director Alfred Hitchcock: “Drama is life with the dull bits left out.” Well, the Burnham-Johnson clash has been anything but dull.

It is, of course, a real-life battle, between the Manchester mayor and the prime minister over the Tier 3 lockdown restrictions announced by the government for the city.

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Indeed, it has been so dramatic it has gripped me far more than David Hare’s “fictional” BBC piece.

There was once a time when thrilling state-of-the-nation series illuminated the issues dominating public life. I’m thinking of classics like House of Cards, Edge of Darkness, A Very British Coup, GBH and State of Play. These days, however, the art is having a hard job keeping up with the reality.

Hare has had great success in the past with memorable political plays, including Stuff Happens, dissecting George Bush’s decision to invade Iraq War, and I’m Not Running, examining the flaws of a Labour politician.

He is clearly a man of the Left, but as one of our leading playwrights for five decades his main preoccupation has been with the double standards and hypocrisy of our political elite.

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I was, therefore, looking forward to his new thriller. Laurie and McCrory, certainly, do not disappoint. Stephen Fry’s old mucker is brilliant as the charismatic Peter Laurence, a straight-talking, cunning and entirely self-centred politician who has, let us say, a complicated love life.

Any similarity to a real-life politician is merely coincidence. Not really.

The problem is that, in these frenetic, and bitterly-divided, Covid times, a plot involving a Johnsonian figure’s bid to replace a female Tory Prime Minister already seems somewhat dated. It’s so 2019.

Boris, more than any other MP, has always understood the idea of fiction enhancing reality. He once compared the UK leaving the EU to The Incredible Hulk. On another occasion he declared Brexit to be like The Shawshank Redemption. And, after his recent illness, he alluded to Austin Powers when denying he had lost his “mojo”.

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Especially the scene where an emotional Burnham, in black shirt (top button undone) and casual jacket, passionately denounces the prime minister for playing a “game of poker with people’s lives” and furiously berates Johnson for treating the North like a “sacrificial lamb”.

I’m sure David Morrissey or John Simms would do Burnham’s northern rebel role justice. Several memes showed Andy’s head photoshopped on to the body of Kit Harrington, who played the northern hero Jon Snow in the series Game of Thrones. Others featured Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark in the series, asking: “What about the north?” What indeed.

Northern leaders were initially kept in the dark when the government briefed the London media about planned lockdown restrictions for the region. It feels like a return to the 1980s, when a heartless elite allowed de-industrialised areas to rot.

There appears, though, to be a split in the rebel Northern Alliance. While Burnham was rowing publicly, and a little theatrically, with the government, Yorkshire’s only metro mayor was conducting negotiations behind closed doors.

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Dan Jarvis, who runs Sheffield, refused to join his fellow Labourite’s battle and agreed to a lower package in return for shutting pubs and other businesses. This was an unexpected twist, an intriguing sub-plot to the north-south thriller. I expect Sean Bean is already being lined up to play Jarvis in the inevitable Hare dramatisation.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson