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back to article Meryl Streep to tackle Margaret Thatcher

The French Lieutenant's Woman is poised to tackle the Iron Lady in a dramatisation of the 17 days leading up to the 1982 Falklands War, the Hollywood Reporter suggests. Meryl Streep is "in talks" to play Margaret Thatcher in the Film4/Pathe* collaboration, dubbed Thatcher, with Jim Broadbent also discussing the possibility of …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just the days leading up to the war

    And miss out the bit that tells how the Americans win it?

    Surely not

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    1. Neil Hoskins
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Actually...

      ... I remember speaking a few years later to somebody who had been there with the RN. He said that it had been, "An absolute shambles and if it hadn't been for the Yanks we'd have been stuffed."

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      1. lawndart
        Reply Icon

        Actually also...

        I was chatting to an ex-USN officer a couple of years ago who distinctly remembers intense gunnery drill as his ship sailed with some alacrity in the general direction of the Falklands in May 1982. That they turned around before they arrived at their ordered destination was primarily due to the rapid conclusion of the land battle.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Nononono

    Alan Rickman needs to play the head baddie: Rupert Murdoch.

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  3. Gianni Straniero

    Casting

    Benicio del Toro as Pinochet? I reckon not. Philipe Noiret would have been a shoo-in for the role, had he not preceded the dictator to the grave by a fortnight or so. A nice irony too, given Noiret played Neruda in Il Postino.

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  4. Martin Winchester
    Coat

    Alternative title...?

    Maggie Mia...?

    MW

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  5. Thomas Gray
    Coat

    Ah, but will she be peeling an orange?

    As she did in her triumphant role as Mrs. Arthur Scargill?

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Badgers

    Ding! Ding!

    I want to get off this planet.

    1 0
  7. LinkOfHyrule

    Thatcher Thatcher Milk Snatcher

    Wasn't there a playground song just slighty before my time called "Thatcher Thatcher Milk Snatcher" or something? That would make a good song! Ha!

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  8. Kay Burley ate my hamster
    Megaphone

    BBC to appease the Tories

    ...Should have been the headline.

    0 1
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      @BBC to appease the Tories

      No chance - more likely to be the opposite>

      Immediately before the Falklands was a time of recession & high unemployment. Opinion polls suggested that the general public perceived her as the worst Prime Minister in British history.

      It was only after she (virtually) invited Argentina to occupy the Falklands that she gained the backing ('leader at war' syndrome).

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      1. It wasnt me
        Reply Icon
        Thumb Down

        Would that be the same ...

        ..... leader at war syndrome that worked so brilliantly in favour of Messrs Blair and Brown ?

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Thumb Up

          It didn't work for Blair and Brown

          because they _were_ the worst leaders in history.

          Brown especially- as Chancellor and PM he did more bad than Thatcher could have tried to.

          This play sounds like a good thing to go see!

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One to wait for

    There are innumerable US politicians who have made a career of playing Ronald Reagan--pity that'll be at best a bit part.

    As for the musical numbers, may I suggest "Don't Cry for Sheep, Argentina"? Or maybe "They Can't Take that Away From Me" (The days we ran on coal/The time we got Graf Spee/The memory of all that...).

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Musical options

    what about "The Fletcher Memorial Home" ? Too obvious? Might make for a short film too I guess.

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  11. Matthew Smith
    Grenade

    Thatcha!

    Rejoice!

    Rejoice!

    My career is saved

    by the argie battleship

    sent below the waves

    Gotcha!

    Gotcha!

    I have no regrets

    about my brave boys

    killed by french exocets

    Victory!

    Victory!

    I have no time for whiners

    i'll march on at home

    and go thrash the miners

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  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unfortunate

    "If Streep signs on the dotted line, she'll be reunited with director Phyllida Lloyd"

    Phyllida?! Sounds itchy.

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  13. Peter Murphy

    I think you've got things the wrong way around.

    Get Alan Rickman as Pinochet, not Galtieri - the latter could be played by Geoffrey Rush. Both actors look like the dictators in question.

    As for playing Murdoch, all you need is a puppet from Spitting Image to get that rubbery look.

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  14. Toby Rose
    Alert

    Meryl to tackle Margaret

    From the title it sounds so so promising. Then you realise it's got nothing to do with ladies rugby!

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  15. Neil Hoskins
    Thumb Up

    For the definitive take on the cock-ups leading up to the war:

    "Military Intelligence Blunders and Cover-ups" by Colonel John Hughes-Wilson. £6.69 from Amazon.

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  16. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    In The Loop

    I can't wait ... for the scenes where Maggie threatens to cut of their dangley bits.

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  17. Dave Oakes Silver badge
    Pirate

    Falklands, the musical

    Sort of been done already, by Steve Bell the Guardian cartoonist and a cast of penguins.

    It was noted for a massive heap of penguin guano called "Paramount", which explained Thatchers quote: "the interests of the Falkland islanders are paramount"

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  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Better casting

    Sharon Stone reenacting her finest moment from 'Basic Instinct' showing how Thatcher charmed Reagan with Jedward to play the Thatcher twins. Graham Norton to host the inevitable BBC talent search programme.

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  19. davefb

    Theres already been a musical hasn't there?

    'visualized' by the great Steve Bell..

    'FOoooortress falklands where the cash goes pouring down the drain, where the sound of sheep will stop you sleep' ( all i can vaguely remember)..

    Still , meryl streep as thatch , that does sound very 'comic strip'..

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  20. PT

    Comedy?

    I don't know why people think it should be a comedy. There was nothing amusing about trying to run a business during the Friedmanite hag's economic experiment. I didn't notice people laughing when their mortgage payments doubled and then doubled again within a few months, or when unemployment ramped up to several million. Export industries weren't rolling in the aisles while she held the pound at $2.40 and made it impossible to sell anything overseas. I imagine the banks didn't chuckle either, with the numbers of people just abandoning their homes, though the fly builders probably grinned as they looted newly-foreclosed properties and ripped the bathroom fittings out. Even, I would think, genuine Friedmanites would pause at the way this supposed small-government conservative left office with the total tax burden, as a percent of GNP, several points higher than when she came in.

    I hope the movie is a serious hatchet job, as serious as the hatchet job she did on the British economy. It needs to be recorded for posterity. It might help prevent the greater tragedy of a new generation of since-borns picking up the right-wing nostalgia and ignorantly repeating the same mistakes.

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    1. Neil Hoskins
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      Brilliantly expressed...

      ...if I may say so.

      I have my "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead" T-shirt ready. I'm determined that when the evil crone finally snuffs it they don't turn her into some kind of national hero.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Troll

      I'm guessing you're not a fan then :-)

      each to their own I guess.

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      1. PT
        Reply Icon

        Re: I'm guessing you're not a fan then :-)

        That would put me in the large majority, then. At the time General Galtieri saved her ass, Thatcher and her government were enjoying the lowest approval ratings (25% and 18% respectively) since opinion polls began. The wave of jingoism that is presumably the subject of this film pushed her up enough to win the next election, but she was ignominiously sacked by her own party to avoid a Tory holocaust in the one after.

        I guess you had to be there to understand.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          FAIL

          @PT

          "The wave of jingoism that is presumably the subject of this film pushed her up enough to win the next election, but she was ignominiously sacked by her own party to avoid a Tory holocaust in the one after."

          Interesting - according to you we had a parliament that lasted without a general election for 9 years from 1983 to 1992. The "next election" (the one after the Falklands war) was in 1983, Thatcher stood down 7 years after that (in 1990), and the election following that - the first one in which she didn't lead the Tories - was in 1992. But it was not possible for a parliament to last for more than 5 years without a general election.

          Your idiotic rants might carry a bit more weight if you bothered to check your facts before spewing out your drivel. It is quite clear from the dates quoted above that there must have been a general election some time in 1987 or 1988 (in fact it was in 1988) and that far from being as you claim sacked by her own party to avoid defeat in that election she led the party to victory in it.

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  21. Neoc

    I vote for a musical!

    After all, it worked for "Keating!"

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  22. James Pickett

    I vote for a musical too

    'Springtime for Margaret'

    Where's Mel Brooks when you need him?

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  23. GrahamT

    Comic strip already did it

    They did a show about Hollywood's version of the miners' strike, with Al Pacino as Arthur Scargill and Meryl Streep as Maggie.

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