"Blair is a riveting figure because he is so hard to read. When he became leader of the Labour Party, the first year he was called Bambi and the second year he was called Stalin"
[Stephen Frears]

In 2000, Stephen Frears wound up directing a live-broadcast remake of Cold-War nuclear-paranoia flick Failsafe for US television.

A challenging technical challenge even before the drama, one would think. But when the headline act of the starry ensemble is also its creative midwife - and his surname is Clooney - the attraction begins to become clear.

For all its genre tropes, Failsafe has a palpable whiff of 'here and now' about it, a feature which it shares with The Deal, a more English tale of paranoia in high places.

It is approaching election-year when the leader of the Labour party, John Smith, suffers another in a line of heart attacks and dies.

With the leadership campaign about to start, the clear choice appears to be Gordon Brown, a fellow Scotsman. However Tony Blair is also beginning to appear more likely as he will appeal to Southern voters who would turn off to Brown. Blair rings Brown to arrange a meeting to discuss which will go for the job.

The Deal is the latest demonstration of Frears' versatility, dipping back into a TV-drama field much changed from his '70s 'golden years', and grappling with a subject-matter some felt hadn't even become history yet, let alone 9-o'clock dramatization.

Frears is probably the perfect realiser of this contradictory world :
"I did meet Gordon Brown once and he seemed very funny and clever. He made a speech which included some jokes and you thought what a witty man. Then when I was doing research for this film, I discovered the same jokes in Tony Blair's speeches… which was a little disillusioning"

Also included in this programme is episode 20 in the Comic Strip Presents… series, which ran on Channel 4 in its early ('80s) years, and which proved a major vehicle for many of the Comedy Store 'alumni' to expand their profiles and skills outside 'alternative' stand-up.

Mr Jolly Lives Next Door is not the only Comic Strip Frears directed (but is the least seen) and features a proto-Bottom Ade Edmondson and Rik Mayall indulging in an drunken escort agency rampage through London and environs, wooing Nicholas Parsons and upsetting Peter Cook, who appears in a brief but brilliant cameo as an axe murderer (Mr Jolly), who chops up his victims to the music of Tom Jones.

Fun to see such a collection of burgeoning (now establishment) talent with big hair. Fun to see their irreverence endorsed by 'Cookie' - their spiritual Godfather. Fun.