Channel 4 is to make a Brexit drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch, who will play Dominic Cummings, the former government special adviser who helped lead the leave campaign to victory. The broadcaster cannot be accused of being anything less than topical: although the referendum took place almost two years ago, the ifs and buts of EU withdrawal are, if anything, less settled than they were in 2016.
The question is not whether it is too late to make a topical drama out of Brexit, but whether it is too soon. The vote may have taken place, but in many ways it is still being contested. The terms under which Britain will leave the EU have yet to be negotiated and the Electoral Commission is still investigating whether the leave campaign breached the referendum spending limit.
When dramatising recent events, topicality is the point and there is merit in being first. Casting yesterday’s news as narrative history requires a measure of audacity, which in turn creates a stir. But there is also a freedom that comes with being patient. When drama and real life are too proximate, they have to compete.
A Very English Scandal, the first episode of which aired on Sunday on BBC One, waited more than 40 years to revisit the Jeremy Thorpe scandal. The main advantages are clear: almost all the people caught up in those events are now dead (Norman Scott being the exception) and thus unable to raise objections. Younger viewers will come to the TV series not knowing the details of the original story. The Crown is busy relitigating history going even further back, in a way that certainly would not have been possible at the time, or even decades afterwards.
When dramatising more recent events, timing is crucial, even if it is often more a matter of luck than anything else. Although Peter Morgan’s The Deal was written nearly 10 years after the 1994 Labour leadership battle it sought to dramatise, the story might have been rendered obsolete if, as some predicted, Brown had taken over from Blair by the time it aired in 2003 (he had not; Blair hung on for another four years). Channel 4’s Brexit project is due to be broadcast next year, just before Britain leaves the EU. What if things change? At this point, one could hardly describe the Brexit negotiations as being on schedule. Imagine having to reckon with that timetable.
That is one of the difficulties with a true political tale: you are stuck with what happens. The story may change, or it may outrun your script, or it may get old quick. Fictional representations of politics can better mirror political realities – or sometimes even anticipate them, the way The Thick of It and Veep seemed to do.
None of these difficulties will matter much if Channel 4’s Brexit drama is good and there is no reason to think it won’t be. The real problem may lie not with those it portrays, but with its audience. Brexit is an extremely divisive issue, the debate still bad-tempered and raw. At this stage, it seems unlikely that peace will have broken out in a year’s time. Accusations of bias dog every bit of reporting on Brexit, for and against. That is not the ideal atmosphere for the launch of a narrative account that, while it owes its audience and its subjects fairness and honesty, ought to have no business with impartiality. Drama needs to take a stand, if not a side.
There is an obvious need for a Brexit TV drama that puts the whole sorry business into perspective for leavers and remainers. I am just not sure I am ready to watch it yet. Are you?