You may have half-forgotten – or at least tried to – the days when our then prime minister Boris Johnson’s favourite line in tricky media interviews was “we must wait for the Sue Gray report”. When the report into breaches of the lockdown regulations in Downing Street arrived, in its bureaucratic way, it was shocking to the public and devastating to the Johnson administration. The details may have faded from the mind, but Channel 4’s enthralling, emotionally draining Partygate is here to remind you of them in highly graphic form. It’s a matter of: you’ve read the report, you’ve seen the news coverage… now watch the play. If you can bear it. The producers only drew the line at turning the report into a musical. The docu-drama has got plenty of bangin’ party hits – Abba, Rick Astley, Bonnie Tyler – so maybe one day…
Partygate is an ambitious and mostly effective amalgam. The central character is Grace Greenwood (played with a delightful, nuanced sensitivity by Georgie Henley), a fictional No 10 special adviser who, eventually appalled by the events around her, turns whistleblower. Grace is from a fairly humble background (grandad worked in a steel mill), and grew up in the politically symbolic “red wall” town of Darlington.
