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The Politician's Wife

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The Politician's Wife plays out in three installments, each lasting a little over an hour. This playing time is needed to allow for the intricate plotting of this complex drama. In the first part Flora Matlock, wife of Tory minister and rising star Duncan Matlock, learns that her husband has been unfaithful to her. This infidelity is ironic given that Duncan represents the family in the conservative English government. At first Flora is surprised and angry. We watch as she packs her bags to leave her husband. Before she finishes her packing she gets pressure from all sides to support her husband. She gives in to the manipulations of the men who want to keep Duncan in power. A little later on Flora learns from Duncan's assistant that the affair with an escort girl, Jennifer Cairn, lasted for a year or so. She is given pictures and an audio tape documenting Duncan's infidelity.

In part two Flora, an exceptionally bright and capable woman, plots Duncan's downfall. Whenever she begins to question her motives, she listens to the audio tape to steel her in her resolve. Flora is as clever as Iago in Othello. We marvel at her political astuteness as she makes her plans and lays her traps for her husband, who deserves everything she does to him. In part three we hold our breath as she springs the trap and sets in motion a string of events that should keep all viewers watching closely to see what will happen next.

The Politican's Wife represents the best of television drama. The acting is first-rate by all participants, particularly Juliet Stepenson as Flora, Trevor Eve as Duncan, Ian Bannen, unfortunately now dead, as Sir Donald Frazier, confidant to Flora, and Minnie Driver as the escort girl. A large cast supports these principals superbly.

The story moves quickly and inexorably to the finale. The only mild violence in the plot happens in the bedroom as we watch Flora begin to take control over her wayward husband by playing to his many sexual weaknesses. Duncan is a manipulative villain and Flora is every bit his equal when it comes to scheming. Flora can lie and cheat with the best of the men who surround her.

Is lying ahd cheating what it takes to succeed in government? The Politician's Wife suggests that honesty is for losers and those on the fast track to political power need to learn to manipulate the system to their advantage if they are going to have any chance at success. The Politician's Wife demontrates dramatically that women are not the weaker sex -- quite the contrary. Highly recommended.

This is an enormously satisying British television program involving political hypocrisy, personal corruption and revenge. It's a mixture of cynical humor and serious political observations. And it features great acting all around.

Duncan Matlock (Trevor Eve) is an up-and-coming Tory politician who's specialities are family values and ambition. He's married to Flora Matlock (Juliet Stevenson), who loves him and who has supported his climb up the Tory ranks for years. She's the epitome of the perfect political wife...smart, wealthy, loyal, socially adept but with a human touch, great at looking entranced at her husband on stage while he gives his speeches about values and family. When it's discovered he's had an affair with a former prostitute (Minnie Driver), she is devestated, but he pleads for forgiveness saying it was only a passing weakness. The Tory damage-control team, headed by Sir Donald Frazier (Ian Bannen), after weighing things for a bit, decides to swing behind Duncan and convices Flora that her husband is a changed man. She agrees to stay with him.

Then she learns Duncan's affairs go way back, that they are continuing, that he has a habit of using people, which includes her and the people who lead organizations trying to help battered women and familes, for his own ends. Flora sets out to seek her revenge...and does so with great subtlety. Duncan doesn't know what hit him until it's too late, and she gently forces Sir Donald and his inner-party big wigs to make some cynical choices. I'm not sure there's a male politician in the bunch who comes off very well -- they all seem to be self-satisfied, self-serving members of the same club. Flora beats them at their own game.

Juliet Stevenson is a first-rate acrtess, and she does a superb job. She moves from devotion to hurt to forgiveness to a strong, smart woman setting up hidden revenge with immense believeabilty. Her short speech before a group of Tory wives who call themselves The Conservative Christian Wives Club (this is after she has discovered the truth about her husband but is playing the loyal wife) is a funny, ironic piece of subversion. Trevor Eve is just about as good as the charming, believable, ambitious, hypocritical politician on the make.

"The Politican's Wife" was shown in three installments and runs just over three hours. There's not a dull moment. The DVD transfer, on one disc, is very good. This is the unedited UK version. The program was trimmed a bit when shown in the US to eliminate a flash or two of breast.

This is one of the great revenge stories of all times. Paula Milne has written the script to a three-part miniseries seen not too long ago on Masterpiece Theatre called "The Politician's Wife." The Minister for Family (of all people) is caught in a love nest scandal. And like a certain President's wife of recent memory, his spouse is expected by The Party to stand behind him. Well, she does-and in the most original way possible. As all the Old Boys rally behind this despicable lowlife, the wife uses that very system of disinformation to get back a bit of her own. Just how she does it and with what results I refuse to say, because I want you to savor this jaundiced view of inner-party workings and how they destroy whatever traces of humanity those concerned might have had once.

Well, this show is now yours for the viewing on an Acorn Media DVD (AMP 7117), and I suggest you grab it. It is due to appear on July 6, 2004; but I wanted to give you lots of warning.

The disgusting conservative minister is played to perfection by Trevor Eve, while the equally evil (but just possibly unwitting bait in the trap) femme fatale is made very believable by Minnie Driver. But the show belongs to Juliet Stevenson as the wife who does what is considered (by men, of course) to be her duty in the most beautiful Iago-like way. My favorite part is the speech she gives to the wives of other conservative politicians, in which she thanks them sincerely for showing her that personal morality and feelings and family and true devotion must all be put aside for the sake of The Party. This Swiftian moment is nearly matched later when she tells someone about how her husband is such an accomplished liar that he has started to believe his own lies-as long as he is still speaking them. Do governments ever really change?

In fact, the only sympathetic characters other than the wife (and that is a matter of opinion) are the two children. All the other male characters are smiling, foul Party-beings to whom "conservative" means nothing more than conserving their power and "truth" means nothing more than the most effective lie that will serve their turn.

The three episodes have a total running time of 187 minutes and every minute is riveting. True to what television executives think the public wants, we get our usual quota of nipple shots (why do these actresses put up with this?) and the F-count is under 10. (Remember when they had to get special permission to say Damn at the end of "Gone With the Wind"?)

There are some film-biogs at the end and an interesting essay by the author that you will have to read off the screen. But the play itself is top-notch. Again, grab this one.

`The Politician's Wife' is a fascinating drama, a revenge story of the first order, and a good rendition of post-Thatcher politics shortly before the fall of the Conservative Party, in part due to charges of corruption from being so long in office. This is a Channel Four production, also shown on the PBS series (heavily edited) `Masterpiece Theatre' in the United States.

This is a drama as a triptych. The first part is discovery, the second part failed reconciliation and aftermath, with the third part revenge. Flora Matlock is a perfect politician's wife - dutiful, full of charm and good works, reasonably stylish without being ostentatious, and definitely one not to outshine her rising-star ministerial husband. Coming from a family with a political background (her father is himself an almost-has-been in the Party, hoping to hitch himself to the rising Duncan Matlock), she was the `right sort' who could be counted on to act in such a way as was `meet and right so to do'. But Duncan has a secret that has just been revealed.

Flora discovers her husband's affair first from the media onslaught that occurs as a result of the press getting hold of the story. Duncan Matlock enlists the aid of the various party members, including Flora's own father, to pressure her to forgive him, not just for the sake of their marriage, but for the sake of the party; they hope that her party-political upbringing will help her to `see reason' in this process.

However, there is one party functionary who does not like what is going on (Mark Hollister, a middle-weight player in the party, who perhaps sees the fall of Duncan Matlock as his opportunity to rise in the party). Duncan Matlock had described his affair with Jennifer Caird in very generic, disarming terms to Flora. Hollister provides very graphic tape recordings of phone sex and other very prurient details that show Flora just how much Duncan was concealing. Flora decides to take on her husband, her husband's mistress Jennifer (who seems to thrive on the continuing attention both of Duncan and the media), and the whole party apparatus to get justice, a kind of justice she decides for herself.

The party functionaries are Machiavellian, but it turns out they are rank amateurs compared to Hollister (in the beginning) and what Flora Matlock becomes. She uses her history and their constant underestimation of her to good advantage, and soon has the upper hand in all dealings. Her revenge is indeed sweet in the end.


Acting and Directing

Juliet Stevenson does a remarkable acting job, going from the somewhat mousy to dramatically tough Flora Duncan in the space of three episodes. To play the two different characters would be acting ability enough; to carry forward both characters as a believable combination of both into one is great. Trevor Eve plays a great villain as Duncan Matlock, condescending and ambitious, deceitful and emotionally usurious. Indeed, one might wonder at the mismatch between Flora and Duncan given their different characters, save for one conversation between Flora and her father, where he claims that she had to know what he was like when she picked him for a husband, and she responds that she didn't pick him, he picked her. Another stand-out performance is by Minnie Driver, in her pre-Hollywood days, as Jennifer Caird, the outspoken mistress of Duncan Matlock. Anton Lesser also does a good job as Mark Hollister, playing the one who seems to care both what happens to Flora as well as to his own career.

This is definitely one of Graham Theakston's best - he has directed episodes in a lot of dramatic series (Cadfael, A Touch of Frost, Taggart, Dempsey & Makepeace) as well as a few other stand-alone projects (Sherlock, The Mill on the Floss). The pacing is good throughout, and the overall tone of the production is a good one, befitting its political theme.

The production won the BAFTA TV award, the International Emmy for drama, the Peabody Award, and the Writer's Guild of Great Britain award for dramatic writing, all in 1995 or 1996.



Spoiler Alert * * * Spoiler Alert * * * Spoiler Alert

Read no further if you don't want to know the nature and outcome of Flora's revenge.

My favourite scene has to be at the conclusion, while Duncan is sitting in the airport lobby seats, waiting for a flight to take him to a do-nothing graveyard post in the European Parliament (I recall the words of Jim Hacker, from `Yes, Minister', who described taking a European Parliament job as a dead-end for a political career - `You're reduced to having to start your own party if you ever want to make it back,' he said). On the television in the airport lobby is a broadcast of the election results for the parliamentary seat vacated by Duncan, and there is the victor, the radiant Flora Matlock, who has beaten her husband and the whole of the party machine at their own game. Indeed, she was by that point another Iron Lady in the making.

It is not unusual in politics for a widow to take the place of a politician who dies in office. This was true even before women began to regularly elected in their own right - it also speaks to the skill and lack of appreciation that politician's wives tend to get in general. In the United States, with Hillary Clinton now running for the same office her husband held (who had his own brush with infidelity), this drama seems like the right kind of piece. All things old are new again.

An outstanding and overlooked drama from 1995 that was originally presented as a three-part miniseries in the UK. Juliet Stevenson delivers a tour-de-force performance as Flora, the staunchly supportive wife of Duncan Matlock,an ambitious rising star in England's conservative Tory party. Scandal erupts when Duncan is caught with his pants down by the notorious British tabloid press. His fling with an "escort" girl (Minnie Driver) quickly becomes fertile ground for muckraking, as he happens to be the Minister of Family (oops).

At first, Flora suffers in silence,desperately wanting to believe her husband's assurance that it was only a regrettable one night stand. She caves to pressure from Duncan's handlers (including her own father) to keep a brave face in public, "for the sake of the party". But when a conscience-stricken member of the Minister's inner circle slips Flora some irrefutable evidence proving that the "fling" was in fact a torrid year-long affair, her pain turns to bitterness and anger. Fueled by the deep sense of betrayal and growing awareness of Duncan's wanton abuse of his powers, she hatches a clever and methodical scheme to subvert his political capital right under his nose.

The beauty of Paula Milne's script lies in the subtle execution of Flora's revenge. Avoiding the usual "Hell hath no fury" clichés, Milne's protagonist (not unlike Livia in I, Claudius) finds her empowerment through an assimilated understanding of what makes the members of this particular boy's club tick; she is then able to orchestrate events in such a manner that they all end up falling on their own swords (keep your friends close, but your enemies closer). Intelligently written, splendidly acted, and not to be missed.

THE POLITICIAN'S WIFE is further evidence that even talented men are ruled by gonadal impulses and should leave the heavy mental lifting to the ladies.

Flora (Juliet Stevenson) is married to a junior Cabinet minister in Her Majesty's Government, Duncan Matlock (Trevor Eve). Duncan gets caught up in a scandal, which, because he's a Tory in a Conservative administration, is sexual in nature - he's linked to an escort babe (Minnie Driver). Though Duncan declares to Flora that it was a one-off affair, it becomes apparent to the latter and the audience during the first installment of this three-episode telly miniseries that the trysts continue. Indeed, Flora has her nose rubbed in it when she comes into possession of tapes of Duncan and his tart having phone sex. It's devastating stuff. So, while pretending to be the loyal wife standing at her husband's side during damage control efforts by the local Conservative organization, and while Duncan himself strives to get a piece of controversial legislation through Parliament, Flora stage-manages his political downfall with the unwitting aid of a powerful Tory Mr. Fixit, smoothly played by Ian Bannen (the schemer of WAKING NED DEVINE), since deceased.

The performances by all actors involved are top drawer. Indeed, Duncan is the male pig you love to hate, and he's a politician besides. Eeeuw! But THE POLITICIAN'S WIFE is a one-woman show, and Juliet Stevenson is the one you pay to watch as her Flora persona picks herself off the floor - kicked while down - and gives hubby his just desserts. There are times when, as Flora gazes at her spouse as if he's an interesting lab specimen, you can almost hear the wheels in her head turning, turning, turning, and you know the man is doomed. In a final scene, it appears that even Duncan admires his wife's Machiavellian talent.

My only criticism - a trivial one - is that Duncan's Whitehall department, the Ministry for the Family (or some such), didn't project the grandiosity that warranted the attention provided by a juicy sex scandal. I mean, if the U.S. Secretary of HUD was caught flagrante delicto with a bimbo, who would care?

THE POLITICIAN'S WIFE is perfect small-screen entertainment for those nights when the spouse is off at ... work?

Seldom willl a political thriller rise to the level of The Politician's Wife. Having nearly worn out my videocasette version, taped from PBS some years ago, I am overjoyed to see this program finally reach DVD. The story is as watchable today as it was when first shown on Masterpiece Theatre.

The story is old as time, yet fresh and new in the hands of Juliet Stevenson and Trevor Eve, with the help of an outstanding supporting cast. At first, Stevenson's Flora appears, for all the world, like a mousy political wife. Yet when her husband's [the ironic Tory 'Minister for the Family'] affair comes to light, she reveals new and formidable strength as she moves to seemingly support yet actually undermine her husband's political career. What follows is an engrossing character-driven tale of one woman's ephiphany in the face of a faithless husband and a collection of political operatives who believe they have her where they want her. The truth, you will discover, is something quite different.

Do not miss this one!

It is long past due that American audiences discover the brilliant Juliet Stevenson, who is a national treasure back home in England. This is one actress who can be absolutely depended upon for sterling performances in every performing arts medium from film, stage, radio, television to audio-book narrations. In fact, Ms. Stevenson was voted "favourite reader" by the British public for her many radio performances. She doesn't merely read, but brilliantly inhabits each and every character bringing the written word beautifully to life.

This is a fine mini-series - good writing and fine performances all 'round.

After viewing this film check out "Truly, Madly, Deeply" for another Juliet Steven performances. Search amazon for her audio-book narration as well. You won't be disappointed.

There is very little to add to the other raves except the the DVD version contains a confrontational scene near the end which was not shown on the Masterpiece Theatre broadcast: it takes place between the politician and his wife outside in the garden of thier house in which the truths come out and the relationship between them is finally destroyed. Just riveting!!!!!!!!

This movie proves what I've always said. "Revenge is sweet", and "Revenge is a pie best eaten cold". Found the actors great, the tale intriguling and the writing excellent. The British do it so well! Bravo to them.