After their trips across Europe sampling food and wine while slagging off each other’s spot-on impersonations, Rob Brydon is likely the Welshman most associated with Steve Coogan. But in truth, Coogan probably gravitates more towards Michael Sheen in terms of career trajectory given their uncanny ability to get into the skin and psyche of real-life individuals, whose names are piling up on their respective IMDb pages. Sheen is rightly renowned for his Brian Clough, David Frost and Chris Tarrant while Coogan’s takes on the diverse (to say the least) likes of Tony Wilson, Jimmy Savile and Stan Laurel are now the stuff of showbusiness legend. 

And Coogan is back in the real world once more as he becomes Brian Walden, the 1980s finest political TV interviewer who excelled in the longform one-to-one which is anathema to today’s ‘pack-em-all-onto-one-short-sofa’ approach to TV interviewing. Harriet Walter is arch and austere but with flickers of humour and (dare we say it) humanity in her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher, who we first see as mid-70s Leader Of The Opposition but whose rise (and ultimate demise) closely mirrors that of Walden’s.

They first meet in an ITV studio for an edition of the Walden-fronted Weekend World (they don’t make political programme theme tunes like that anymore: Thatcher was clearly not enamoured with its raucous punky intro) and while coming from different ends of the party-political spectrum (Walden was Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood between 1964 and 74 before pursuing the journalism and broadcasting that made his name), a mutual respect and friendship grew. He even began to pen ad hoc speeches for her.

As a means of keeping Walden slightly at arm’s length and to attempt to dilute his adversarial tendencies for their interviews, Thatcher appealed to his sense of being an outsider. He had felt the Labour Party was no longer the social-democratic unit he joined while she was having to force her way into stuffy conservative (with both a big and little ‘c’) structures that were stridently male-dominated. But more than that, she played heavily on the ‘common touch’ of being a greengrocer’s daughter.

This worked on Walden for a while, but soon, driven on a little by ratings and a lot by concerns over his own reputation, he finally cut loose and went for the jugular just when Thatcher was at her most vulnerable as the party turned against her in 1990. In this telling (brilliantly written by screen and stage writer of the moment, James Graham), she is stunned by what she views as a betrayal of their friendship.

Through Coogan’s performance, you sense regret in Walden; but the will to succeed as an interrogator of those in power and a seeker for truth ultimately won out. Both Walter and Coogan triumph mainly through a refusal to overdo the impersonation and avoid caricature: Walden’s speech impediment is never exaggerated for effect and Thatcher’s weird vocal cadences aren’t laid on thick. For politicos who lived through that period, Brian & Maggie will be a blast. For everyone else, sitting down to experience Graham, Coogan and Walter at the top of their game is a superb start to the telly year.

Brian & Maggie is available on Channel 4.