Steve Coogan really is the man of a thousand faces, and by far the most skilled actor around for playing real-life characters (with all due respect to Timothee Chalamet). Whether he’s playing Tony Wilson (24hr Party People), or Jimmy Saville (chilling, in The Reckoning), or, er, Steve Coogan (The Trip), he is the guy who doesn’t merely impersonate: he gets under the skin of these people.
And he’s at it again in Brian and Maggie, where he plays broadcaster Brian Walden, who presented a long-form political interview show on LWT in the 80s. The difference here is that he has a rival in the ‘being-very-good-at-playing-real-people’ stakes, as he goes toe-to-toe with Harriet Walter as Margaret Thatcher.
