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Script Report
Title: Denis & Margaret Length: 97 pages
Writer: Xxxx xxxx Genre: Bio-pic
Agent: Xxxx xxxx Place: England
Time: 1940s/50s/60s/74
Reader: Ray Grewal
Summary: Starting with Margaret Thatcher’s decision to stand for leader of the
Conservative Party in 1974 the story cuts between her campaign and the late 1940s and 1950s
when she embarked on a life in politics. The most important encounter in those early days
was at a Conservative Party meeting in 1949 where she meets Denis Thatcher, the divorced
manager of a paint factory. They start a relationship and eventually get married and have
children. Although Denis tries to play the dutiful husband to his ambitious wife the pressure
eventually gets to him and he disappears to Africa. Margaret, struggling to cope with the
pressures of trying to secure a seat in parliament and Carol and Mark is hospitalised with
pneumonia. As soon as Denis hears she is sick he returns home. He has decided to sell his
business and dedicate himself to supporting Margaret. In 1975 Margaret wins the leadership
challenge.
Comments: An assured bio-pic that unfortunately doesn’t stay true to the title and spends
too much time dealing with the politics and not the personal.
The problem with telling a story about Margaret Thatcher and focusing on her assent to
leader of the Conservative Party is that we all know how it is going to end. A more
interesting story is her relationship with Denis who seemed so content to remain in her
shadow. The script begins with this story: Denis and Margaret on a golf course, she acting as
caddie, he ineptly whacking his ball from one hazard to the next as she tells him she’s going
to stand for leader and he tells her she’s nuts but he’ll stand by her. The scene has humour
and warmth: the cosy feeling of a couple totally at ease with each other. We then cut back to
1947 and see a young, pretty Margaret Roberts leaving the factory where she works and
Denis Thatcher, mid thirties, still in his army uniform returning to austere post war London.
The set-up is simple and concise: we are going to discover how these two people met, fell in
love and managed to remain together through thick and thin. The following scenes progress
in this mode: Denis discovers his wife has been cheating on him so his marriage collapses as
Margaret, working in her father’s grocery shop, talks politics to anyone who will listen and
campaigns for the Conservative Party. They finally meet at the Conservative Party get-
together when Denis is the only one who can give Margaret a lift to the station. In the car

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their conversation is awkward as Margaret is her usual sincere self and Denis tries to be
funny. Margaret, who has a degree in chemistry even tries to tell Denis how to run his
business. They separate on less than cordial terms but Denis can’t help but watch her walk
away (like Marilyn Monroe in ‘Some Like it Hot’ the script informs us). The next day he
talks to his work colleague about her: he is clearly intrigued. The first act concludes nicely,
very much as a rom-com, and the question raised is how is this career under-achiever going
to win the hand of such a strong, determined woman?
Problematically this gets lost in the script’s desire to chart the nuances of Margaret’s assent to
power both in the 1950s/60s when she wanted to become an MP and in 1974/75 when she is
working with her campaign team to first become leader of the opposition and then PM. In all
of this Denis is side-lined – there are endless scenes of him sitting a one room watching
rugby while Margaret sits in another with the likes of Norman Tebbit plotting her strategy.
Their courtship is truncated and narratively unsatisfying. Denis helps Margaret get into a
Conservative Club with a no women policy by getting her a job behind the bar for a night,
then he is threatening to remain in Claridges for three consecutive nights waiting for her and
then he is asking her father for her hand in marriage. What is it about her that he finds so
alluring? When she finally arrives at Claridges she insists on working while they wait for the
menu. And why is Margaret drawn to him? She has wonderfully supportive parents, a father
who has always expected great things from her and men, even the Labour party members
can’t seem to resist her so what is it she sees in Denis? The script never tackles these
questions. Margaret’s focus is her career and so is the script’s.
When Denis does finally crack and he walks out it comes out of the blue. Margaret is
working late at the ministry of pensions, Denis is lingering around in his office at work
because he knows Margaret won’t be home and the next day when she takes him breakfast (in
the room where he sleeps when she is busy) he is gone. He has gone to South Africa because
it was ‘getting a bit much for me lately’. Why wasn’t it a bit much for him when he’d sat in
Claridges waiting for her and then she insisted on working when she finally did arrive? Or all
the other times when her career came before him? It seems more of a plot contrivance then
the gradual emotional breakdown of a man who thought he could play second fiddle to his
ambitious wife but when push came to shove he was as much of a chauvinist as the next man.
The twin narrative structure does not help the development of their relationship. There is no
attempt to reflect how they were in the 1940s/50s with how they are in 1974/75. At least in
the past they met, got married, had children and went through a mini-crisis but in the present
Denis has accepted his place in the shadows so their relationship doesn’t progress at all.
Margaret is as focussed and self assured as she always was so no comparison can be made
between her journey to become leader of the Conservative party in the present (1974/75) and
Denis’ journey to become ‘a wife’ in the past (40s/50s/60s). The only comparison that can be
made between past and present is between Margaret’s desire to become an MP and her desire
to become leader - both of which involve her struggle to be accepted in a man’s world and
both of which end with her success.

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While the characters are all clearly drawn, especially Margaret and Denis, there is a lack of
emotional conflict that would give them depth. At the Crayford Council Chairman’s ball in
1950 Margaret, in the words of the Mayor, looks ‘ravishing’. She first dances with Norman
Dodds, the Labour candidate, who tells her she is working for the wrong party. She then
dances with Sir Alfred Bossom who practically asks her to marry him. Then finally she
dances with Denis. Has he been standing on the side-lines seething? If he could would he
challenge the other men to a fight? Are the other men bewildered that such an amazing
woman as Margaret would choose a man like Denis? The script stays clear of questions like
this preferring instead to focus on campaign discussions and how to manipulate Margaret’s
image as a house wife. Margaret’s parents Alf and Beatrice are portrayed as strong capable
people. Alf is angered when pictures appear in the newspapers of Margaret serving drinks
behind the bar and he is completely unimpressed with Denis. Beatrice is given less space to
have an opinion and there is no discussion between them of whether they agree with
Margaret’s choice of career or her single mindedness.
The vast majority of other characters in the script are Conservative MPs who are defined by
their acceptance of Margaret (Nigel Tebitt, Keith Joseph) or by their opposition to her (Ted
Heath) and once again the conflict is derived from the political not the personal.
The script does succeed adeptly in capturing the various time periods it portrays: from
England still suffering from post war rationing in the 1940s to the political and social
struggles of the 1970s. How much of an affect the time and place has on the two central
characters is unclear. One of the most telling scenes in the script is when Margaret is in
hospital giving birth to Carol and Mark whilst Denis is at the Oval watching the cricket. It
perfectly captures the upper middle class delineation of the roles of men and women.
Because of this the conflict and journey Denis goes through to take on the woman’s role in
the relationship must be painful for him – but we never see this (we must assume the
transformation takes place whilst he is in South Africa because he comes back a changed
man).
It is unclear what the themes of the script are: is about a woman’s struggle to make it in a
man’s world? Is it about the pressures of political life on a married couple? Is it about role
reversal? It has bits of all of these but not enough of any of them for it to be defined any one
of them.
Overall this a rather confusing script from a competent writer.