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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCjdU478pIc
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None of his kids seem to want to speak to him, and refuse to respond to his voicemails.
Coming to the end of episode 3, and they have just started discharging untested hospital patients into care homes.
Dominic Cummings is coming across as a bit of a nutcase.
Carrie wears the trousers.
Dylan is a bit of a nuisance.
Some funny bits, but also very sad bits.
Boris finds it impossible to avoid shaking hands with everyone he meets.
This programme is unlikely to enhance his reputation.
@HAYSIE
What channel please Tony?
Thanks Tony @HAYSIE
Will take a look tonight.
You can download all 6 episodes.
Between January and March 190,000 people flew into London from China.
When we went into the first lockdown 1.5 million people were infected with covid.
Two weeks before there were only 75,000.
Locking down earlier would have saved thousands of lives.
There is a huge age difference between them.
She is 24 years younger than him, and it shows.
With people trying to move on now that the pandemic is apparently over (despite Covid cases rising again fast, including yours truly), is there much appetite for a six-part drama about the government’s response to the health crisis?
Scripted by comedy writer Kieron Quirke and Michael Winterbottom, who made The Trip films with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, This England is a kaleidoscopic drama that takes in government and health bodies but also ordinary people affected by the crisis. And of course it’s the one with Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson. Under a ton of prosthetics and a suitably mop-like wig, the actor has been transformed into the spitting image of our former PM.
The opening episode began however with a montage of news footage that took us as far as Johnson’s general election victory in December 2019. “Here he is,” shouted someone as we got our first glimpse of Branagh’s Boris. “Our prime minister for the next five years.” The line sounds suspiciously like it had been added after his Downing Street exit.
The action shifted from Mustique, where Boris and Carrie Symonds were holidaying courtesy of a Tory donor (naturally), to Wuhan, where the first cases of a “Sars-like virus” had been reported. And from the offices of the medical journal, the Lancet, to Oxford University’s Jenner Institute, where a prototype Covid vaccine was already under consideration.
Meanwhile, in Downing Street, Johnson’s beanie-hat-wearing chief adviser Dominic Cummings (Simon Paisley Day) was laying into the Number Ten operation and filling it with his so-called “wild cards”. This was, by the way, a far less appealing Cummings than Benedict Cumberbatch gave in Brexit – The Uncivil War. “It’s like some medieval court and he’s Thomas Cromwell,” as one brow-beaten special adviser put it.
But anyone hoping for a Downing Street version of Wolf Hall – or indeed The Crown – may have been disappointed. The focus was too scattered and at this stage Branagh’s Johnson remains an almost peripheral figure, pottering about, doing very little work and forever spouting Shakespeare (a cinch for Sir Kenneth) or finding someone to walk his dog, Dilyn.
This is probably not far from the truth. Branagh does a great job of impersonating Johnson’s gait, mannerisms and mien (although he looks older around the eyes than the ex-PM), without really telling us much that’s new about the man. But this is a thoughtful drama and hopefully a more incisive portrait will emerge.
Bearing a much more natural physical likeness to their real-world counterparts were Ophelia Lovibond, excellent as Carrie, Andrew Buchan as Matt Hancock and Shri Patel as a hilariously dashing Rishi Sunak.
After yet another long holiday, during which Johnson attempted to write the Shakespeare book for which he’d been advanced half a million pounds (read it and weep, authors), and Labour jibes about being a “part-time prime minister”, it was decided he should address the looming Covid crisis. The UK’s action plan? “Wash your hands with soap and hot water.” Otherwise, business as usual.
Winterbottom, with his collaborative history with Steve Coogan, and sitcom specialist Quirke might have been expected to produce something more overtly satirical. But This England is more like a drama-documentary and, by sticking to what felt like the facts, has the makings of a persuasive critique of what went right and (more to the point) wrong when Johnsonian Britain collided with a global health crisis.
https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/this-england-sky-atlantic-review-kenneth-branagh-boris-johnson-1882171
Certainly never enjoyed endless footage of elderly people dying in care homes & hospitals. Sure, it's a major part of the story, but there was too much for me.
What I did enjoy though was being reminded of how the whole COVID saga unfolded. Maybe there's a documentary out there I've missed but it was such an extraordinary two years we all endured.
Undecided if I'll watch the rest of it.
There was one thing that it brought home to me.
Like many people I sat there, watching the odd press conference, and the number of deaths scrolling across the bottom of the tv screen, on a daily basis.
Because it occurred day after day, I think I just got used to it.
Watching the programme gave me a better understanding of what was really going on, an appreciation of the pain felt by the families of those that died, and the terrible conditions that prevailed in hospitals, and care homes.
As well as the shocking way that the staff in both were treated, and neglected, as the safety of the staff seemed to be an afterthought.
I think though our culture spread throughout the world so hopefully it won't be entirely lost.
I hope we somehow save the classical music from Russia the Vodka and the unique architecture.
I think it would be awesome to have a beautiful meat carvery with expensive red wine and a full cheese selection whilst watching/listening to classic Russian Music with nice Cuban Cigars.
However unfortunately all of the UK most of Russia and most of the United States won't exist anymore soon, barring a nuclear wasteland.
there are unique cultural things from all around the world the Russians had their classical music, we had fish and chips, Americans have cheeseburgers and the NBA. France had red Wine, the Germans had their sausages and lager. India brough us curry, Sweden brought us those nice cookie things and the Dutch brought us cheese. Its a shame it will all be gone soon but rather oddly I have been happier since I accepted all this.