AFTER a record-breaking run at tjhe Park Theatre, and huge critical and public acclaim,
 Jonathan Maitland’s debut play - Dead Sheep - arrives in Malvern this week.

Author and broadcaster Maitland says of his satirical play:  "When I wrote it in 2014 I knew it would be resonant. But it now feels uncanny.

"Then, as now, it was a story of a government split over Europe, agonising conflicts of loyalty, and a fatal miscalculation by a seemingly impregnable Prime Minister.

"The timing couldn't be sweeter,” he added.


Now the play is on a UK tour and runs for a week at Malvern's Festival Theatre from Monday, November 14 through to Saturday, November 19.

It sees Steve Nallon return to the production to star as ‘Margaret Thatcher’, having portrayed her for many years on the political puppetry satire Spitting Image.

Paul Bradley, best known for playing ‘Professor Elliot Hope’ in Holby City, will play ‘Geoffrey Howe’, Carol Royle will play ‘Elspeth Howe’, Graham Seed will play ‘Ian Gow / Nigel Lawson’, Tony Bell will play ‘Bernard Ingham / Alan Clark / Dennis Thatcher’ and John Wark will play ‘Stephen Wall / Brian Walden’.

It is 1989 and a seemingly invincible Prime Minister has sacked her Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, thinking she had nothing to fear from him; his speaking skills had, famously, been compared to those of a dead sheep.

But inspired by his wife Elspeth - a formidable and witty feminist, whose relationship with Thatcher was notoriously frosty – Howe overcame his limitations to destroy Mrs Thatcher’s political career… and also his own.

Dead Sheep portrays the story of how Mrs Thatcher, arguably the most divisive Prime Minister of modern times, was brought down by her one time friend and political soul mate Geoffrey Howe.

It uses imagined dialogue to portray private scenes between the main protagonists and recreates the events leading up to Howe’s famous 1990 speech, in which he criticised Thatcher for undermining policies on economic and monetary union in Europe, ultimately leading to her downfall and resignation.

Dead Sheep is the result of two years’ research, during which the playwright gained access to Geoffrey Howe himself and other prominent politicians and advisers of the era.

Jonathan Maitland is a broadcaster and writer. He reported for Radio 4’s Today programme in the 1990s, before co-presenting BBC1’s Watchdog and ITV 1’s House of Horrors.

He has presented ITV1’s flagship current affairs show, Tonight, for the last 16 years. He has interviewed, amongst others, Tony Blair, Madonna, Henry Kissinger and Bob Geldof and written for all the national newspapers. He has authored five books, including a best-selling memoir How To Survive Your Mother and Vote For Who?

Steve Nallon became a founding member of the Spitting Image team in 1984 and it aired until 1996. Although he became most famous for providing the voice of Thatcher, he also voiced many of the show's other characters, including ‘The Queen Mother’, ‘Alan Bennett’ and ‘David Attenborough’.

His other stage credits include Cissie and Ada, An Hysterical Rectomy (UK tour) and Carnival (Barbican), his television work includes Jonathan Creek and TV Burp and he appeared in the film 51 Degrees North in 2015.