Michael Gambon inhabits a diminished Winston Churchill in summer 1953, eighteen months into his second term, when a catastrophic stroke is hidden from the public and the succession fight begins. Adapted by Stewart Harcourt from Jonathan Smith’s book The Churchill Secret: KBO, the 90-minute ITV film keeps the action largely inside the Churchill country house where Romola Garai’s brisk nurse Millie Appleyard coaxes the old lion back towards speech and mobility while Lindsay Duncan’s Clemmie holds the family together.
The wards of power are filled with familiar faces: Alex Jennings’s Anthony Eden waits twitchily in the wings, Matthew Macfadyen’s Randolph drinks and rages, and the Tory grandees circle like polite vultures. Director Charles Sturridge shoots the interiors at West London Film Studios in muted browns and nicotine yellows, so the flicker of a recovered memory or a stuttered punch-line feels like a small victory against the dying of the light. PBS’s Masterpiece picked up the title, giving the project its transatlantic polish.
Gambon, who took over after Albert Finney withdrew, never slips into impression; the voice is rasping, the walk a controlled shuffle, but the cussed wit and sudden tenderness arrive in perfect proportion, making the final re-entry into the Commons corridor a quietly moving resurrection rather than triumphalism.
Production Details
2016
Main Cast
