The interview that shook Thatcher: ‘Brian and Maggie’ revisits a turning point in Britain’s political history The interview is now seen as the beginning of the end for Thatcher’s premiership.
Written by Olivier Award-winning playwright James Graham (Sherwood, Quiz, Brexit: The Uncivil War) and directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen, Philomena), the drama revisits the intensity of the interview that saw a rarely flustered Thatcher visibly agitated.
Walden once likened Thatcher to his mother and described her as “the master spirit of our age.” During her 1983 general election campaign, he even penned a speech for her, coining the term “Victorian values” – a phrase she famously adopted.
Conducted by Brian Walden, the former MP turned feared political interviewer, the grilling exposed the Iron Lady’s vulnerabilities and is now widely seen as a moment that hastened her downfall.
By the 1980s, he was a household name in political journalism, hosting Weekend World and later launching his own programme, The Walden Interview.
