The period this England covers is pretty tight, just that first wave. In retrospect, of course, this was the most dramatic moment. We had never seen a pandemic before. We had never heard birdsong so loudly or lost friends en masse. We’ve never tried to process how big a number 1,000 is when it’s associated with deaths in one day. We had no idea. As subsequent events – worse surprises, new lockdowns – piled up, it was as if we were building a shell of cynicism. But those early days were defined by ignorance and innocence. “I felt it was important to highlight that this was a new virus,” says Winterbottom. “One of the main things we wanted to capture was how quickly people had to respond to this constantly moving target.” A shock was the sudden realization of how interconnected we all were, how dependent we were on each other, how grateful we felt. I remember honestly thinking that we could come out of all this with a new social contract, a new respect especially for the low paid. That’s one of the saddest things about This England: watching that Thursday applause replay, remembering the belief that you were watching the dawn of a new goodness – and now knowing that you weren’t. Ophelia Lovibond as Carrie and Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson in This England. Photo: Phil Fisk/Sky UK Ltd Winterbottom talks about what he calls the “discounting” of everyday deaths: “‘It’s only older people’ or ‘It’s only people with underlying conditions.’ This discount is wrong. We shot in two hospitals and two nursing homes. One of the care homes is the real one it was based on. The reason they did it for us is that they felt so passionate about what they had been through, what their residents had been through.” The director is famously eclectic. He can be very funny (24 Hour Party People, The Trip, A Cock and Bull Story) and very political (Welcome to Sarajevo, The Road to Guantanamo). There is no clear line about his interests. He can turn his hand to romcom (With or Without You) or period drama (Jude) and doesn’t shy away from controversy (The Killer Inside Me). He was criticized for his depiction of violence against women in The Killer Inside Me and says about it now: “There’s a question about whether you should ever show violence. But if you want it, I want it to be the way it really is – unbelievably ugly.” One of the most surprising elements of this England is the prime minister. Kenneth Branagh portrays Boris Johnson with a physical and aural resemblance that borders on terrifying. He comes across as a heartless man who has bitten off more than he can chew by running the country. who misses his grown children but is trying to make it work with his new relationship. who nearly dies from Covid and then runs out of breath chasing his dog. Hundreds of hours of conversation followed the show, with Downing Street staff, doctors, scientists, care home workers, Covid survivors, grieving families – and you can see the density of research in every detail, not least that untrained dog. Johnson’s political enemies like to describe his house as covered in shit, as if it’s some kind of metaphor. Simon Paisley Day’s portrayal of Dominic Cummings as unbelievably cocky comes across as isolated, while other characters are more of a patchwork. But it is Johnson who cuts across, has an inner life, is not entirely focused on reacting to events. We see him writing his memoirs in his head, giving himself a hero’s journey. Winterbottom, speaking of the disgraced prime minister’s books on Churchill and the Emperor Augustus, says: “He writes deliberately so you know a parallel he draws between that character and himself. It seemed like a legitimate device we could use, imagining his own experience in relation to Greek tragedy.” In fevered, guilty dreams, we see his conscience playing to him in chorus. And that, along with Branagh’s all-too-human eyes buried beneath his prosthetic baggy face, might be where people take issue: Prime Minister Winterbottom is a flawed man, doing his best. In real life, however, few saw much sign of consciousness. “Well,” says Winterbottom, “it was a divisive time. She had a baby. He almost died. There is a huge amount of personal life at the same time as being a politician, at the same time as dealing with the pandemic. Whether you are prime minister or whatever your job is, your children are the most important thing in your life. Your partner is the most important thing in your life. Having a baby is the most important thing in your life.” Really? “When you’re making a story, you try to see it from the protagonist’s point of view. I take full responsibility and blame for the fact that this was the starting point. The premise was that everyone was trying to do the right thing. That seemed to be the right thing to do.” Seriously? “We were really trying not to comment, not to judge people’s behavior.” Why the hell not? The director, exasperated by my line of questioning, finally says, “I have to tell this story without making versions. You can retire.” Of course, given the time frame, the scandalous hypocrisy in This England centers on Cummings and his trip to Durham, the trip to Barnard Castle, the half-truths surrounding it, the battle to get the dual source story before the Guardians can and the Mirrors. post it. From this distance, given the illegal behavior that followed, it’s almost surprising that people reacted so strongly to it. I even felt a certain sympathy for the Cummings in this England: if everyone in the office lives out of suitcases and ends every Friday throwing up in bins, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal to drive to your parents’ house. despite the fact that you ordered the nation to stay home. Childcare … Johnson is seen feeding his new baby on This England Photo: Phil Fisk/Sky UK Ltd This piece is said with incredible subtlety. Cummings and his wife Mary Wakefield go about their business, not feeling too well, recovering, concocting careful deceptions before they are finally brought down, their story juxtaposed with horrific, almost panicked scenes of ordinary people unable to see their loved ones as they died . , Shouting in the street. The classic conceit in drama is that you have to give every victim a story, even if it’s just a piece. This England does not do that. “We decided early on,” says Winterbottom, “that a character dying would only tell his story in relation to the virus, in relation to what happened to him in the hospital. They are all anonymous and fictional, but most are from people or families we met. The shape of what happens to them is driven by the research, not the writing or the acting or the story. We weren’t asking, “What’s the best way to tell this person’s story?” Just a narrative of facts is enough. It reminds you of what you’ve just experienced: whatever power it has is because you’ve experienced it.” This England is a powerful reminder of the different experiences of death: if you didn’t lose someone close to you, then you were still watching that mounting toll. Whatever illusions of unity we had at the time, we were separated by this chasm – those who had lost and those who had not. Winterbottom was on the former side of the chasm. “My mum died in 2020, not from Covid, in a hospital in Blackburn, where I’m from. It was when different rules applied in different areas and Blackburn were still in lockdown. So we were not allowed to see her in those last nine days of her life.” I want to cry out, “So how can you have stayed so righteous?” But I think I’ve said enough at this point. Winterbottom says he worked on This England as he works on everything. “You try to get to know a world, get to know as many people as you can, and then condense it into a story.” It strikes me, however, as a very unusual piece of filmmaking, an attempt to tell all our stories at once, a task so vast that it is done more with stimulus and atmosphere than with words and character. It’s like going back in time. The big question is whether we are ready. This England is on Sky Atlantic/Now on September 28.
