Samuel West - Television - The Long Walk to Finchley

Reviews

The Times
"...Samuel West played Heath brilliantly..."

Digiguide
"...Sam West is great as mysterious ("is he batting for the other side"?) Ted Heath..."

Telegraph
"...[Ted Heath was] perfectly played by Samuel West..."

Articles

The Times
"...the drama calls for performances of pinpoint exactitude, and it finds them in a brilliantly cast trio of leads... Sam West, scheming and glowering as Ted Heath, sucked up all the sources, not least a Monty Python flexi disc from 1973 called Teach Yourself Heath. 'It's absolutely merciless', he says, 'but bitterly accurate'...'I didn't really want to come to a decision about his sexuality that would contradict what I was asked to find in the film,' he says. 'I don't for a moment suppose Ted ever had sex with a man. What I got from the research that I did and talking to the people who knew him was that he was enormously polite and a great politician but difficult to like'..."

Daily Mail
"...The film is also fortunate to have Sam West playing Heath. Mr West puts in a wonderfully scheming, inner-twitchy performance..."

Telegraph
"...The drama had a similar effect [of surprise] on Samuel West, who gives a highly entertaining turn as Mrs Thatcher's perennial rival and predecessor as Tory leader, Ted Heath. 'I'm a socialist and, like Ted Heath, no fan of Margaret Thatcher's,' says the actor. 'But I was fascinated by this script because for the first time it made it possible for me to admire her. This drama crystallises her struggle and unites her friends and foes. In the end, much to my surprise, I found myself rooting for her...'"

Links
BBC 1|2
IMDB [link]
Wikipedia [link]

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