2 hours ago
7
Trigger warning: this review contains the phrase “Michael Gove cosplaying as PM.” There is no helpline.
The Wargame is mind-warping. On the one hand, it posits an imminent nuclear strike on Britain by Russia. Bad! On the other, it posits this happening in a world in which the government is composed of Michael Gove cosplaying as prime minister, Nicola Sturgeon as his deputy, Harriet Harman as home secretary, Sayeeda Warsi as attorney general and Penny Mordaunt as defence secretary. So, you know, there’s a competing “Come, friendly bombs …” vibe too.
How does it happen, you wonder? Is there a long process of producers wooing, cajoling and making increasingly tempting offers to their putative cast members while these sober adults thoughtfully weigh the pros and cons, and the risk to professional reputations that any foray into the entertainment sphere represents (and The Wargame is essentially a heavily scripted reality show) before eventually signing on the dotted line? Or – politics being showbusiness for ugly people and all that, and large numbers of modern politicians being BoJo-type vortices of insatiable need and ego rather than the public servants of yore shaped by ancient notions of faith and duty – did they all come running? Were they begging for parts, flashing teeth and thighs and playing coquettishly with their lapels as soon as rumours of the commission made their way down the hallowed corridors of Westminster? We may never know. We may have our deeply held suspicions. But we will never know.
The four-part double-faceted nightmare that is The Wargame is set nine months in the future. Is this a coded warning to have your affairs in order and a stockpile of beans to hand by next summer? Given Channel 4 also recently aired televisual urban prepper manual Apocalypse, we cannot rule out the possibility that somebody, somewhere is trying to tell us something.
Here, we begin with a Cobra meeting, convened after the assassination of two RAF pilots and a malware attack on regional ambulance services. Which hostile force is behind them and are they linked? Hmm. The politicians all agree that they should wait for more information. The intelligence services and military brass round the table roll their eyes and go off to get it. News comes that a Russian spy ship has been found in Blighty waters, hovering over the undersea cables upon which 93% of our national infrastructure depends, and that everything can probably now be connected to Russia.
The programme starts off relatively slowly: people spend a lot of time telling each other that “This is straight out of the Russian playbook!” and you can see Gove straining to appear statesmanlike when there is nothing yet to be particularly statesmanlike about, which would be endearing if it wasn’t risible. But soon the twists and turns begin. Developments start gathering pace by the end of the first episode and the momentum builds to enjoyably terrifying proportions by the end of the third (the finale, alas, was not available for review).
When does a hostile act become an indisputable act of war? Can you hope for the best but prepare for the worst without giving the wrong signal to your enemies or your electorate? Can the electorate usefully be informed of anything in the social media age, or is everyone essentially a dysregulated toddler now? Can we depend on our allies? What about the one that is led by a dysregulated toddler now? Is there ever a point at which you have to stop thinking about optics and just do what you think best? Is there anyone left who can do that?
All these big questions are interestingly gestured at. But of course the real entertainment – and The Wargame rapidly becomes almost too much fun for something resting on the threatened annihilation of millions – lies in seeing who works well on camera and who doesn’t, and, on that basis alone, working out who you would actually want in place when the motherfunking shit hits the motherfunking fan.
Gove, Harman and Sturgeon are fabulously awful. Stiff, self-conscious, self-important, entirely unable to give any portion of themselves up to the purported reality or the flow of the thing. Sturgeon is an alternately whining and furious goblin, Harman a disappointed schoolmarm and, though I suspect he is desperate to do so, Gove cannot modulate his perma-condescending tone – whether he is addressing his fellow cabinet members, his military advisers or the nation.
Meanwhile, Mordaunt, Jim Murphy (Foreign Office minister in real life 2007-08, foreign secretary here) and Gen Richard Barrons (joint forces commander IRL 2013-16, chief of defence staff in TV land) are like MGM movie stars by comparison. Swift, decisive, plain-speaking (Murphy is the first to swear and he times it beautifully) and – yes, in an uncrowded field – charismatic, these are the people I want deciding my fate. Within The Wargame, sure. But also, at this point, maybe out here, too. If this is not just a warning to us but an audition for them, consider this trio through to the next round.
