This England: a composite portrait of pandemic-era Britain

“This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.” Kenneth Branagh adds to his onscreen Shakespearean repertoire by reciting John of Gaunt’s monologue from Richard II in the first episode of This England. He does so in the guise of Boris Johnson, who delivered it as a rousing celebratory speech on the night Britain officially left the European Union. Having survived a turbulent 2019 and won a convincing election victory, Johnson was feeling on top of the world, but when he revisits the speech later in the series, he recalls the rest of the text: “That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.”

This England is a study of a country in crisis, and of the men charged with steering the population through unprecedentedly choppy waters. The series – conceived by Michael Winterbottom and Kieron Quirke – focuses on the government’s dithering and confused response to the COVID-19 epidemic, with Johnson the increasingly beleaguered figure at its centre. Peering out from behind some rubbery prosthetics, Branagh captures the panic in Johnson’s eyes and his evasive body language when faced with making a major decision. He is an essentially unserious man who would rather crack a facetious gag or spout a quotation from Shakespeare, Churchill or Homer than speak plainly and honestly on difficult issues.

He is also a man who would rather defer to Dominic Cummings wherever possible. Having been played by Benedict Cumberbatch in Channel 4’s Brexit: The Uncivil War (2019), Cummings is here portrayed by Simon Paisley Day, who gives us a shadowy, tight-lipped figure, always lurking in a vaguely threatening manner. Fixated on focus groups and data, Cummings worked with considerable autonomy inside Number 10 as he pursued his vision of entirely reshaping the way the government and civil service worked, and he seems to view himself as a class apart from the politicians around him and the general public, both groups he displays equal contempt for. “I shall be the sun and he Icarus,” Johnson jokingly reassures his fiancée Carrie Symonds (Ophelia Lovibond) when she warns him that Cummings needs to be reined in, but he shows little willingness to confront ‘Dom’ until Cummings’ unlawful drive to Durham makes such a confrontation unavoidable. Branagh may provide This England’s star turn, but the fall of Cummings gives the series its most satisfying arc.

Fortunately, This England is not just concerned with what Cummings frequently refers to as the “Westminster bubble”. As the title suggests, this is a panoramic portrait looking at how a pandemic takes hold of a nation, and how an entire society responds to a disaster. The model may be Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011), which enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in 2020; we even see Johnson and Symonds watching it at one point. (“It feels a bit like homework,” the PM grumbles. “I’m more of a Carry On man, myself.”) As an onscreen counter tallies the rapidly escalating number of cases, This England recreates events from the perspective of the scientists, the media, the NHS staff and – most poignantly – the elderly and the sick. Aside from a few jarring Euripides-inspired dream sequences, directors Julian Jarrold and Anthony Wilcox shoot everything in an unobtrusive, documentary-style fashion, and editor Marc Richardson assembles these snapshots of British life in a kind of mosaic. At times there seems to be little organising principle behind the rhythm of scenes as the drama flits from one location to another, but cross-cutting is often used to potent effect, notably when a distraught man pleading to be allowed to visit his dying father in hospital is juxtaposed with Boris and Carrie enjoying her baby shower with a gang of friends at a plush country retreat.

The scenes of families being separated by care-home windows and saying goodbye to their loved ones over Skype are raw and upsetting to watch, and for many viewers they will undoubtedly feel like picking away at a still-fresh wound. This England presents a populace in need being governed by overconfident mediocrities desperately out of their depth, and two years on from the events depicted here – as we face a long winter of discontent – the personnel may be different but little else about the way this country is being run has changed. “It is insane that people as ignorant and limited as me can have the influence we do in the way that we do,” Cummings says in This England’s first episode. It’s hard to argue with that.

► This England is currently available to stream on NOW TV.