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Archive on 4: Dramatising New Labour

Dramatising New Labour

17/07/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Dramatising New Labour

Professor Steven Fielding looks at how New Labour has been dramatised on stage and screen.

Professor Steven Fielding talks to Alastair Campbell, David Hare and others to assess how New Labour has been portrayed on stage and screen.

What can we learn about New Labour from the way it has been portrayed in drama? 

The dramatists have delved into the troubled relationship between Blair and Brown, the events leading up to the Iraq war and its aftermath, the junking of old Labour values, the personalities, the sex scandals, and of course, spin. 

They have characterised New Labour and its leading players in comedy, satire, drama, docu-drama and bio-pics. Some Labour politicians even think they have seen a Blair-like figure materialise in Dr Who.

Whilst some dramatists base their work on detailed factual research, others lean heavily on their imagination. But all hope to convey an essential truth about New Labour and its leading players, and indeed sometimes to plug a gap left by conventional journalists. 

In this programme Professor Steven Fielding examines these dramas and their impact. He asks what contribution the dramas have made to the way we see New Labour. Do they confuse the viewer about what really happened and what is made up? What is it like for politicians to see themselves portrayed? Do they reveal a deeper truth? How far have they been genuinely revelatory? 

The interviewees are former Downing Street spin doctors Alastair Campbell and Lance Price, writers and directors David Hare (Absence of War and other New Labour plays), Alistair Beaton (A Very Social Secretary and The Trial of Tony Blair), Neil McKay (Mo), Peter Kosminsky (The Project and The Government Inspector) and Stephen Frears (The Deal and The Queen), and current and former Labour MPs Clare Short, Adam Ingram, Andrew Mackinlay and Stephen Pound.

The producer is Jane Ashley

Steven Fielding is Director of the Centre for British Politics at the University of Nottingham.

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