I first saw Michael Sheen on screen playing Tony Blair in the first of Peter Morgan’s Blairology, The Deal, opposite David Morrisey’s morose Gordon Brown and loved the sparky mouse-like chirp he used to embody the then Prime Minister of Britain, and I was hooked.
After making The Deal and stopping on the way to see The Queen with Sheen’s pitch perfect Kenneth Williams in Fantabulosa, the man who would be Blair has honed his uncanny ability to take the larger than life personalities and make them more than caricatures. With his return to the screen as Blair in The Special Relationship appearing on DVD today have Morgan and Sheen more to discover about the man?
What makes Morgan’s films about Tony Blair special is the moment when the 24 hour news cycle was pushed out and the conversations continued, and in these dramas we are given an idea of what went on behind those closed doors. The Deal anchored around the leadership of The Labour Party, The Queen dealt with the balance of power following the death of Princess Diana and The Special Relationship deals with Blair’s alliance with the US Presidents Clinton and, in the final, fateful moments, Bush.
Sheen rolls out another fine performance as Blair, and his all important chemistry with Dennis Quaid works wonders, in particular the decisive moment in the joint press conference amidst the Monica Lewinsky affair when Blair is asked about his support for the President is a joy to behold.
As with The Queen, and to a lesser extent in The Deal, it is the opposing number in the equation which is the more interesting character to mine; Quaid’s Clinton is a touch above parody sparking off Hope Davis as Hilary, and it is their relationship, and perhaps the one involving Monica Lewinsky, which gives this film its heart.
Sheen is fantastic, the rest of the cast doing their job well, but there’s less to unveil of Blair until the very end, when his friendship with Clinton comes into conflict with the political ambition, which has come a long way since the Islington restaurant of The Deal.
It’s a cut above many of the TV dramas on screens at the moment, and it’s another great turn out for both Sheen and Morgan, and it may not be the last.
Speaking with The Guardian a week ago Peter Morgan talked about the ‘proverbial bad penny’,
We’re just beginning to create the monster…I keep feeling that we’ve left without the story being complete. There’s still a way to go – we still haven’t nailed him.
Even with this, we’re just beginning – how did Blair stretch from Clinton to Bush? We’re just beginning to create the monster.
And in many ways that’s the feeling you get from this new chapter in the Tony Blair story, that the journey from The Deal doesn’t end with the inauguration of George W. Bush, that’s there’s more to tell.
