The Deal

The Deal (2003)

It is approaching an election in the UK 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 stanch Scotsman. However Tony Blair is also beginning to appear more likely as he will appeal to Southern voters who would be turned off by Brown. Blair rings Brown to arrange a meeting to discuss which will go for the job. The film flashbacks to the start of their relationship, sharing an office in Westminster on their first seats.

Date of release
2003-09-28
TMDB
6.7 / 10 (28)
Runtime
1h 15m
Genres
Comedy, Drama, Romance, Thriller, TV Movie
Director
Stephen Frears

Casting

Interesting facts

The Deal is a 2003 British television film directed by Stephen Frears from a script by Peter Morgan, based in part upon The Rivals by James Naughtie. The film depicts the Blair–Brown deal, a well-documented pact that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown made, whereby Brown would not stand in the 1994 Labour Party leadership election, so that Blair could have a clear run at becoming leader of the party and later Prime Minister instead. The film begins in 1983, as Blair and Brown were first elected to Parliament, and ends in 1994 at the Granita restaurant—the location of the supposed agreement—with a brief epilogue following the leadership contest.

Production

The film was commissioned in 2002 by ITV's head of drama Nick Elliott, who encouraged Peter Morgan to put aside any other projects and start work on a script as soon as possible. Granada was initially sceptical of producing it; the company's executive chairman and chief executive—Charles Allen and Simon Shaps respectively—believed that Blair would be forced to resign as Prime Minister over the impending war in Iraq, consequently leaving the story…

The relationship between Brown and Blair as depicted in the script was based on that between Aaron Altman and Tom Grunick, the characters portrayed by Albert Brooks and William Hurt in Broadcast News. Morgan wanted to set the entire film in the 12 days following the death of John Smith, but the time frame was widened because the Labour Party's disastrous result at the 1992 general election was "absolutely crucial" to the relationship and motives…

Scenes set in the House of Commons chamber and committee rooms use the actual words as recorded in Hansard. In other scenes Morgan utilised dramatic licence, conceding that there was no evidence to suggest that any of the lines spoken elsewhere in the film were ever said in real life.

At the time of commissioning, Douglas Henshall and Daniel Craig were considered for the parts of Brown and Blair respectively, though David Morrissey and Michael Sheen were eventually announced as the leads in March 2003. Morrissey gained two stone for his role and had his hair permed and dyed. He researched Brown's background by travelling to Kirkcaldy—where Brown grew up—and reviewing numerous biographies and information about the Treasury.

Sheen worked with an accent coach to effectively mimic Blair's speech style, although he and Morrissey avoided doing simple impersonations of the men they played. Sheen cited Will Smith's title performance of Ali as a basis for his part; despite playing a real-life figure, he treated the role as if it were any other character.

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