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List Price: $29.99 | | Label: Acorn Media
Salesrank: 54831
Released: August 12, 2003 |
| Our Price: $17.60 |
| Used Price: $17.60 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A VERY BRITISH COUP
The taut, powerful, all-too-plausible story about a democracy attacked from within When plain-spoken, charismatic former steelworker Harry Perkins becomes prime minister in a landslide Labour Party victory, his socialist agenda horrifies the entrenched ruling class and the right-wing media. As Perkins presses ahead with plans to close down U.S. military bases, break up newspaper monopolies and dismantle British nuclear weapons, the establishment and its American allies conspire in a brutal back-room struggle to regain control. Starring Ray McAnally (A Perfect Spy, My Left Foot), this PBS Masterpiece Theatre miniseries won an International Emmy Award, three top British television awards and the Banff Television Festival grand prize.
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE
• interview with author Chris Mullin
• full-color insert with character glossary
• cast and crew filmographies
Description of A Very British Coup:
Yet another astonishing example of the daring and intelligence of British television, A Very British Coup imagines what might have happened if, during the latter days of the cold war, a left-wing prime minister had launched reforms that seriously threatened the interests of the establishment--including the United States. While the initial barrage of political details may confuse American viewers, the complexity soon clears and this miniseries becomes a gripping, dazzling feast of government machinations, media deviousness, and internal power struggles--leading up to murder, blackmail, and extortion. A Very British Coup cunningly displays the tooth and claw of real politics, how personality and policy meld into action and subterfuge. Ray McAnally is fascinating as Prime Minister Harry Perkins, leading a fantastically skilled cast. This superb thriller is based on the book of the same name by Chris Mullin, a former reporter who became himself a member of British Parliament. --Bret Fetzer
A Very British Coup Reviews:
this was not my kind of movie 
2009-11-06 - other than being a english movie I did not find it that great of substance
if you r not interested in political movies do not buy it
as usuall I had not seen it
another one of my mistakes of the day
Must only buy movies I have seen
chfancier
The Best of the Best Political Thrillers EVER ON TV! 
2009-01-26 - This is the very best of the best of political thrillers on television. I saw it back when it first was on PBS years and years ago. I am thrilled it is now available on DVD. I always hoped it would show again on PBS and was disappointed that it did not win the viewers' favorite they had on television last year. Perhaps that was because they only voted on Masterpiece Theatre? But I thought this was on Masterpiece Theatre. Then again, it could have shown on Mystery. Anyway, it is fantastic and those who don't enjoy it show that they are hopelessly right-wing and therefore contemptible.
A First Rate Political Thriller
2008-11-23 - A left wing candidate is elected after a hard fought campaign by his right wing rivals. No I am not talking about the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. That is the in fact the beginning of A Very British Coup, an excellent and all too plausible miniseries about a left wing British Prime Minister who radical policies lead to members of the right wing establishment trying to bring him down. In fact it for interesting viewing especially in today's world.
Any good production needs a good cast and A Very British Coup has an excellent cast. Ray McAnally gives the greatest performance of his all too short career as Prime Minister Harry Perkins. McAnally captures perfectly the plain-spoken, charismatic leader in both good times and bad. As Perkins, McAnally makes you want to stand up and cheer for him especially with his final speech. McAnally of course is just the tip of the cast. As Perkins biggest enemy is Alan MacNaughtan as Sir Percy Browne, the almost and quietly threatening head of MI5 who sits at the center of the web of conspiracy to bring down Perkins. The supporting cast is made up of some Britain's finest actors from Keith Allen to Tim McInnery, Philip Madoc, Marjorie Yates, Geofrey Beevers, Jim Carter and Oscar Quitak amongst others. Even in small parts like Inspector Page (Bernard Kay) and Annette Newsome (Caroline John) are filled with terrific actors.
The real star of A Very British Coup is its script. Alan Plater takes Chris Mullin's novel and crafts it into a fascinating study of a government under siege from within. Often in political films or series the plot takes head over the dialogue which leads to stifled dialogue. Plater doesn't let that happen and the dialogue never seems stifled but real and urgent. In fact the whole script seems real and urgent despite some of the issues being dated (such as nuclear disarmament). The fascinating thing about watching this is that change an issue or two and this could be today. The result is a story that has the ability to fascinate some twenty years later.
Another important aspect of the productions is its visuals. Director Mick Jackson and cinematographer Ernie Vincze use the camera and screen time wisely. The result is that A Very British Coup is as much a visual feast as anything else with moments in parts two and three that stand out even today. The miniseries is, as a result, a dark and grainy world full of enemies and thinly veiled threats. This even truer when combined with the music of John Keane and the performances of the cast.
The result of all this from the exceptional performance of Ray McAnally, the performances of the cast, an excellent script that's all too plausible and a visual feast makes A Very British Coup a first rate political thriller. It may be twenty years old and somewhat dated at times but it makes a fascinating viewing that still carries weight today. For at its heart A Very British Coup carries an important and time less message: the greatest enemy of a democracy is not from without but from within. It's a message we shouldn't ignore.
A Very British Bore
2008-07-27 - "A Very British Coup," a political thriller, was a 1988 Granada production for The United Kingdom's BBC4 Television channel, home of the experimental, the left-wing, and the sexually daring. It's a political drama, concerning itself with the skulduggery surrounding the tenure of Harry Perkins (Ray McAnally) at the vaunted residence of the British Prime Minister, 10 Downing Street. It was based on the novel of the same name by Chris Mullin,(A Very British Coup), a reporter who was eventually elected a Member of Parliament himself, and who, accordingly, should know what he was writing about. Screenplay was by Alan Plater,( The Beiderbecke Tapes);direction by Mick Jackson. It was seen here on the Public Broadcasting System's "Masterpiece Theatre,"won an International Emmy, and three top British TV Awards. It consists of three 50-minute episodes. The movie is badly dated, and was long out of print before Acorn re-released it in August, 2003.
It's a fantasy, written in the waning years of the Prime Ministership of Conservative Margaret Thatcher, about what would happen if a Far Left -wing member of the Labour party, rather than the centrist Tony Blair, who did actually win election, were to win the Prime Ministership. It posits the election of down-to-earth Yorkshireman Harry Perkins, a third-generation Sheffield steelworker, to the highest office in the land. He enjoys quoting the prestigious "London Times," that called him a "simple fool" during the campaign. He comes in with an agenda appropriate to himself: close down United States military bases, break up media monopolies, and dismantle British nuclear weapons. He upsets many of the British and American powerful with this agenda: did I mention that he's anti-American?
You could consider the film the grandchild of the American Frank Capra's famous 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in which the naïve Jefferson Smith, so memorably played by Jimmy Stewart, goes to Washington as a young man with an agenda. But it's heavily influenced by the brilliant British Boulting Brothers 1959 comedy I'm All Right Jack, in which Fred Kite,Communist-oriented union leader/shop steward, as unforgettably played by Peter Sellers, enjoys nothing more than a chance to shut down the factory. It certainly is the direct progenitor of House of Cards Trilogy (House of Cards / To Play the King / The Final Cut); another more successful British political drama, starring Ian Richardson, which closely followed it. And I guess you'd have to say it's the grand-dad of Sally Wainwright's meretricious 2006 fantasy, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard,in which Jane Horrocks, as Ros Pritchard, Midlands supermarket manager, gets herself elected Prime Minister. Except, whereas the Perkins character has spent a lifetime in politics, has submitted himself to the discipline of his party, works himself up to high office, and has an agenda, the Pritchard character is a newbie to politics, without education in it, background, or her own agenda.
The Irish McAnally's performance in the lead role is towering, and hits all the right notes. It's one of three great performances he delivered shortly before his 1990 death: Peter Egan's conman father in the TV movie John Le Carre's A Perfect Spy; and the indomitable father to the Irish Christy Brown character (as played by an Oscar-winning Daniel Day Lewis) in My Left Foot. He's surrounded by supporting actors who are able enough, some familiar faces, but none really well-known. He is, in fact, the only reason to see this movie, which is the very model of an all-talk no action film--the first, introductory episode literally put me to sleep. You will spot a woman's face about once every 15 minutes, if you care about that kind of thing, and I do. And, what would be a finishing, disastrous touch for many, in a movie that's all talk, there are no subtitles. Sorry folks, but, unless you are a big fan of the talking heads on CSpan, this is very much "A Very British Bore."
Another Day at MI5 
2007-11-18 - British political thrillers are top-notch, and this one is no exception, even if it is a product of the eighties. The Cold War may have evolved into something else, but the problem of media frenzies, covert surveillance and behind the scenes manipulation of events by secret intelligence services continues. In this scenario, when a genuine left-wing Labour candidate becomes Prime Minister, certain Tories, to protect their long-standing aristocratic privilege, pull all sorts of shenanigans to dislodge him, even resorting to blackmail, extortion, and murder.
The designers of this series are to be complimented on the sets, which reproduced the interiors of Number 10 Downing Street in a convincing manner (from pictures I have seen). The elegant imagining of the staircase, the cabinet room, and the residence stand in marked contrast to those of "The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard," in which the interiors were so nondescript that I never believed for one minute that I was actually inside one of the most famous residences in London.
A drawback of this well-acted series [Among other actors, Clive Merrison is excellent as a slick BBC news presenter who excels in lobbing loaded questions at his guests.] is its rather faded look (although this probably can't be helped since the program was made for television in 1986). The series is also dated by the device that was likely included to give the story a hypothetical aspect: it refers to a king, which, since the Queen is still with us--and long may she reign!--and the Soviet Union has folded, detracts from the verisimilitude of the scenario. The most dated aspect of the film, however, is the use of what now seem like gothic computers with LED TV-like monitors that must hold about 55k of memory (Shades of my old Apple IIe!). One wonders whether the cell phones on "The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard" will seem like dinosaurs in twenty years!
To Acorn Media's credit, they have included a lengthy audio interview with the author as well as selected filmographies. As usual, there are no subtitles.
Each episode begins with disturbing images of burning debris falling into the Thames. The full significance of these does not impact the viewer until the end credits roll.
