Marie Phillips

My expectations of The Iron Lady were pretty low - I only went because friends were going, and for lovely Harry Lloyd (who was a delightful Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations and did a memorable turn as a villain in one of my favourite Doctor Who two-parters, Family of Blood.) Usually I’m a Meryl Streep fan too, but I wasn’t sure I could take her Thatcher seriously having seen Jennifer Saunders as Meryl as Thatcher in Strike! (astonishingly the whole episode is available on 4od via YouTube here).

In fact I really enjoyed it. It’s a beautifully-made and, particularly, beautifully-performed film - Streep is as good as they say, and I only got an attack of the Saunders in one scene, when Maggie’s at the ballot box. The supporting cast are all fantastic too. (Harry Lloyd as young Denis is as edible as hoped. What a smile.) I loved the structure of the film, which is centred on Thatcher’s decline into senility, and the general effort made to show her as a human being, wife and mother as well as politician.

But at first it seems weirdly, perversely pro-Thatcher. To the point that whenever there is any criticism of her - on the TV, say - it is talked over or switched off. Even those who love her acknowledge that she is an incredibly divisive figure, and it just seemed so one-sided. But because of the framing device, this is Thatcher’s story as Thatcher remembers it herself in her old age: where she is the heroine, the centre of everything, the saviour of the country, pioneering feminist, great war leader and so on. She is the only female MP we ever see, even though historically there were others. The British public are only ever shown as crowds - greeting her with adoration or rioting: rabble who need a firm hand. She is frequently found at the very centre of circles of surrounding men. Denis is the perfect, loveable, bumbling househusband, with no visible work or life of his own. Carol (in the past) is little more than a petulant teen. Mark is only ever seen as an adorable child and never the weak, embarrassing adult he grew up to be. Any criticism, as I mentioned, is deliberately muted, obscured or erased. And when she finally leaves Downing Street, the staff gather and weep. This is Thatcher by Thatcher: we are presumably not meant to take this version literally.

The problem is that, although the Thatcher doing the remembering is senile, and memories are fallible at the best of times, there are very few explicit indications that the way she remembers it might not be exactly the way that it was. The lack of female MPs is one, a moment where the elderly Thatcher walks into a cabinet meeting in the past is another. There is some horrifying archive footage from riots showing police brutality that is at least seen, even if never mentioned. Aside from that, there is no hint that we should interrogate this version of events. You only know to do it if you already have some knowledge of Thatcher. If you don’t, you get little help here.

What we gain from this approach is sympathy. Thatcher is not a heartless ogre. She feels. She cries. The portrayal of her dotage, in which she struggles to rid herself of the comforting hallucination that Denis is still with her, is a moving depiction of the loneliness and fear of anyone’s old age.

What we lose is rigour. Does this film have anything interesting to say about Thatcher, other than that she was a human being with feelings, which I think all but the most virulent of Thatcher-haters would concede? There’s almost no attempt to interrogate the controversies of her leadership at all - the miners’ strike, sinking of the Belgrano etc are presented, but never explored in any depth. Any time there is a risk that we might doubt Maggie, the stirring music comes on and she makes a speech about the good of the nation, and you’re encouraged to think she did the right thing under difficult circumstances. That’s how Maggie might want to remember it, but what about the rest of us? The Thatcher years deserve a complex treatment - not hagiography, not hatchet job - and they don’t get that here.

In the end, I think I’d have enjoyed this an awful lot more if it had been fiction.

Here are some of the things I am doing to motivate myself this year. This is not a comedy list, by the way. It is for reals.

1. I read a book called 18 minutes. It didn’t take me so very much longer than 18 minutes to read. Also, it is the only self-help book (but business self-help, so that’s OK, I swear) which ends with a chapter telling you to ignore most of what it said, which really saves on guilt, as I was planning to anyway. In any case, the bits that I did pick up on include not only making a to do list every morning, which is obvious-ish, but also deciding what I’m going to ignore that day, which isn’t. I am getting so much stuff efficiently ignored, it’s great.

2. I bought a diary where the day sections aren’t too big and that’s where I write my daily to do lists. That way there isn’t enough room for the list to be too long. So I try to do less and I get everything done.

3. I made my browser homepage a picture of some kids jumping into the sea, to remind me to just get on with whatever it was I opened my browser to do. Previously it was the Guardian homepage = very distracting.

4. I don’t switch on my phone or check my email until after I’m up and dressed. Somehow I’d got into the habit of spending an hour on Twitter in my PJs before doing anything else. Not conducive to productivity, although very conducive to getting cross on an empty stomach.

You guys: it’s, like, TOTALLY changed my life. For three whole days so far. I’ve written a thousand words every day, tidied the house, except not all of the house because I decided to efficiently ignore* the mess in my study, made soup, sent some emails, made some appointments, spilled soup, cleaned up soup, not that those were on the list but these things happen, updated my blog, ate soup, bought avocados, AND MORE.

Let’s check in later in the year to find out if I am still doing ANY of those things.

*Did you know that split infinitives are no longer officially considered to be grammatically incorrect? True. Really. True.

Like musicals? Like me? Like me in musicals? Hey presto!

I am in this musical which is on at the Drill Hall, London from December 13th-16th. (If you want to be sure of getting tickets, the date to aim for is Thursday 15th.) So, for you Warhorses fans out there, is Robbie, and many other of our regular collaborators (not that we’re Vichy France or anything.) It is written not by me or Robbie but by people who write stuff of a remarkably similar sensibility (take a bow, Kate Ferguson and Sue Pearse). Instead of Greek Gods in modern times, or chatty Napoleonic horses, this is Faust in the 1960s. I don’t think it’s crazy talk to say that if you like one, you’ll like t’other. Also, this one has SONGS. I totally think you should come see it, like, totally. And then buy me a gin and tonic in the bar after, with ice and a slice.

The Drill Hall website is a leeeetle beeeeet uncooperative, so if I were you I’d book tickets on their phone line which is 020 7307 5060. That is what I would do.

See you all there, including those who live in Canadia.

Thank you!

Robbie is bloody clever and has figured out how to upload Copenhagen and Marengo’s Gay Times piece onto our Warhorses blog. I got sent it too, but can’t even figure out how to rotate it so it faces the right way up. Anyway, Copenhagen and Marengo are guest columnists in this week’s Gay Times and we hope you enjoy.

In other Warhorses news, our book is close to fully funded, which means that with a few more pledges from you good people it will actually see the light of day. (It is being funded by advance sales, not in the usual way by people buying it after it’s out. This means that if you were thinking of buying it, now would be the best possible time. This reminds me that I need to buy a copy for my mum.) This also means that Robbie and I are putting the finishing touches on the text. THIS means that if you have a burning question that you would like answered in the book, you only have one week left to email it to warhorses@unbound.co.uk. Remember, if we do answer your letter we will upgrade your purchase, so for example, if you have bought the e-book, you will get a hardback copy. If you haven’t bought anything we probably won’t answer your question. THAT’S ECONOMICS.

(That might not be economics. I don’t fully understand economics.)

(In more brackets: there are a few glitches on the Unbound site, which we have helpfully detailed over on the Warhorses site, along with reassurances. Well Robbie has. People who follow both Robbie’s blog and mine might not be astonished to know which one of us updates the Warhorses blog more frequently.)