This England

If you've loved the portrayal of The Royals in 'The Crown' they you'll like this time capsule based on the rise and fall of the Conservative government from mid 2019 through 20/21 with the highs of Brexit and successfully leaving it 2020 but the onslaught of the dreaded 'COVID' its all very gripping as we all lived through it in real time and losing family to it so equally hard to see it unravel in a drama but then this based on life experiences of key events.

Kenneth Branagh as the infamous 'Boris Johnson' not only puts in a brilliant performance from his gravely voice and waddle but looks exactly like him with his doting wife and look alike Carrie.. From Rishi to Hancock, all putting in a great performance, brilliant!

I was really looking forward to this, but my only criticism is that it didn't really know what it was trying to do.

It's a tough job to cover everything that happened because there was simply too much going on to fit into the time allowed, but no mention of Track&Trace and the PPE scandals was very odd to say the least.

Some judicious editing would have made this more engaging because we don't learn much from continually watching people walking around and saying hello to their colleagues.

All the bits about the dog (Dylan) should never have made it to the final cut.

6/10 because it's above average but nowhere near as insightful as it could have been.

An excellent fiction based on real events drama regarding Boris, England and Covid.

Couldn't decide whether at times it was a serious drama or a comedy but then there's always the bumbling comedic value to Boris so someone playing Boris was always going to be humorous.

It's very interesting - mixing home life with work life of the ones working within the government at the time of the pandemic. Quite a worry if this is really how the virus was handled by our government - apart from Cummings they were all a set of muppets.

Anyway very entertaining to watch and well done. Well worth a binge and anyone time who is genuinely interested in what happened at that time..

There is so many takeaways from this, but the stand out is the realisation that Dominic Cummings is just not very bright. In fact, I'd suggest that he is a bit of a twonk.

More generally, this is well done - it is well written, well performed, maintains a decent pace, covers the key moments of the pandemic in way that is very easy to follow. Dramatically, it generally delivers.

However, whilst Branagh, as Boris, captures the voice, the prosthetics are a problem. Winterbottom, et al, would have done well to consider Anthony Hopkins' performance as Nixon. Whilst they look nothing alike, Hopkins captured the physically of Nixon very well and built the performance up from that. I suspect that the prosthetics were an impediment and, sometimes, the physical performance, the hunch of the shoulders, the wave of the hands, the shake of the head, comes too close to parody to quite work.

The dream sequences, just to cement that Boris is a bad Dad, detracted. It was off point, added nothing, it should have been cut.

Finally, Contagion. In the first or second episode, Carrie and Boris are sat watching TV and there we find Kate Winslet explaining the reproductive properties of an imaginary virus, which just served to remind me how much better Soderbergh delivered all of this. Where this was baggy - multiple characters introduced, just to kill them off - Contagion was rigorous, tight, taut, and all the better for it. I understand what Winterbottom was trying to do: to give the hidden victims a voice - but, ultimately, Contagion delivered a greater punch through maintaining focus.

Oh, and some of those politicians - Hancock, and the like - really do belong in prison. That Tory Government really is stained in blood.

This England is an excellent dramatic series, perhaps too close, that portrays a very difficult period of time not only for England but for the whole world, in which some governments were incompetent, they did not know how to face the pandemic.

Being honest I have to admit that I watched the series to see Kenneth Branagh work, it's fascinating how he gets the voice, the gestures, the physicality, he becomes Boris, but what makes his performance perfect is that he doesn't judge the character, he doesn't ridicules not condemns him, Branagh shows Boris for the viewer to judge. The rest of the cast and crew also do a great job. It's worth the time, sometimes a little hard to watch but it's important not to forget what happened and where everyone was.