Detailed background information on how writer Neil McKay and director Philip Martin brought Mo to the screen.
The idea for a drama about Mo Mowlam originated with Jeff Pope, Head of Factual Drama at ITV Studios. Three years ago, he approached the writer Neil McKay, with whom he had worked on seven previous projects, including See No Evil: the Moors Murders. McKay was immediately attracted to the dramatic nature of their subject.
'Why Mo? We thought her story was pretty remarkable, even if she had not been Secretary of State for Northern Ireland,' he explains. 'Here was a woman who had a serious illness, much more serious than she let on to people. She dealt with it soon after she’d got married - she met Jon Norton pretty late in life - and then this illness happened. We thought that was a pretty interesting story, but if you add on the fact that just after she was diagnosed, she became Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, with the massive responsibility for what was going on in that very troubled province at that time, and had to cope with illness as well as trying to unlock the conflict in Northern Ireland - that, we thought, was a pretty extraordinary recipe for a drama.'
The two began a process of exhaustive research, which was to continue for the best part of two years. But this meticulous attention to detail paid dividends, according to McKay. 'We only discovered just how extraordinary the story was when we did the research, talking to Mo’s close family and friends, her political colleagues, and many people in Northern Ireland, ranging from Martin McGuinness to David Trimble to much more shadowy figures such as Michael Stone.'
Key among the people they spoke to was the late Jon Norton, who they returned to time and again for source material, and who was immensely supportive of the project. But they found that almost everyone they spoke to was eager to share their recollections of Mo Mowlam. 'People tended to speak to us pretty readily, because most people really liked her,' recalls McKay. 'Most people had stories, some of which were too rude and lewd to publish in print, many of them very funny. Only three people turned us down. They were Alastair Campbell, Peter Mandelson and, unsurprisingly, Rev. Ian Paisley.'
Another key figure they spoke to was Mowlam’s doctor, Mark Glaser. 'That was tricky, because there were issues of confidentiality,' says McKay. 'But in the end, Dr Glaser was extraordinarily helpful. So there were areas that were particularly tricky and sensitive, but in those particular areas, that’s where we found our biggest journalistic scoops - and I think there are some journalistic coups within our drama.'
The fruits of McKay’s labour were then sent to the man who would go on to direct the drama, Philip Martin. 'I read the script and really loved it. I’d really liked his film See No Evil, about the Moors Murderers, and I read this one and really liked it. Neil is such a meticulous writer, and such a brilliant sifter of information. I know that he, Jeff and [producer] Lisa Gilchrist spoke to everybody, and circled the subject really brilliantly. They talked and talked and talked to all of the people on all sides of the spectrum, and from that basis you then feel confident going forward.'
With the script completed, and a director on board, the next step was to find someone to play Mo. 'I wouldn’t say we had Julie in mind absolutely categorically, but she was in my head from the word go, because there are very few people who can take on something like that,' says McKay. 'Mo was a very full-on character, extremely ebullient and full of herself, and she didn’t censor what she said. It required an actor with amazing brio and confidence. So I didn’t write it specifically with her in mind, but she was in the back of my mind.'
The script was sent to Walters, who readily agreed to play Mo. 'It’s really well written, and written because someone really wanted to write about her,' she says. 'There’s nothing formulaic about it. She’s a really interesting woman, and it’s a very human story, this film. The politics is interesting, but it's almost in the background, eclipsed by Mo. Which everything was. She was this tornado that went through life with everything else happening around her. It's about who she was, it's about her love for her husband, it's about caring for people, it's about dealing with the tumour, it's about her courage. But it's not sentimental, that's why it's special.'
Channel 4’s then-Head of Drama, Liza Marshall, green-lit the project soon afterwards. 'I think the fact that Julie signed up to it was enormously helpful,' says McKay. 'I don’t think it was the reason it was green lit, because Liza Marshall really liked it anyway. But there’s no doubt that having Julie attached to it was a big plus.'
The next job was to cast the other roles. Director Martin explains what they were looking for: 'In finding the right actor to play each role, you don’t necessarily concentrate too much on physical resemblance. David Haig, for example, doesn’t particularly resemble Mo’s husband Jon that closely, but he really captures his spirit, and the role that Jon played in her life. It doesn’t matter if they resemble them if they fail to capture the humanity and spirit of the person.'
After such a lengthy and painstaking period of research, writing and casting, the filming itself was remarkably quick. Five or six weeks of pre-production was followed by just four weeks of shooting. 'We were pretty fast and furious. It was a very intense period,' says Martin with commendable understatement.
One key aspect of the film, according to Martin, is the access the production managed to get to the original locations. 'We filmed the whole thing in Belfast, and we were able to film in Stormont, we were able to film in Hillsborough by talking to the Secretary of State. All of those things were incredibly useful to us, to not only be in the same part of the world that the story took place in, but also to be in many of the same locations. It really adds to the production values and the credibility and the feel of it all.'
As shooting progressed, Martin quickly began to appreciate the qualities of his leading lady. 'She’s in almost every scene, and when you’re filming fast, you have an enormous amount to shoot every day. Somebody like Julie just carries the film. She’s got pages and pages of script to learn, pages of dialogue to remember. And there are no scenes in this film that are small scenes, they’re all about huge moments in a person’s life, and it’s a life that’s packed with incidents and events. In any working day, you’re just going from a big moment to a big moment to a big moment, and jumping around in the chronology of somebody’s life as well. Julie was amazing.'
'We shot this in HD, and we did make-up tests right at the beginning, before we started shooting, just seeing how the make-up and the wig was going to work. She was going to wear this bald cap for when Mo loses her hair through chemotherapy. And Julie worked out very quickly that this was going to take a really long time to do every day, and would slow the film-making process down and mean that she had to spend hours each day in the make-up chair, so she just said ‘Well, I think the thing to do is for me to shave all my hair off.’ And of course it was the best thing to do, because HD is so remorseless in its scrutiny, and you’d be able to see the joins on any fakery. But she just did it without any fuss. She’s an extraordinary person, to do something like that. That’s why she is who she is.'
When the film was completed, it was time to show it to Mo’s family and friends. It was, says McKay, a remarkable experience. 'Nothing can compare with it. You hope that when the thing is broadcast it will get good ratings, you hope that it will get good reviews, but there is nothing to compare with sitting in a mini-cinema with the subject’s relatives and friends and watching them. We had an enormously positive response to it. There was a lot of laughter, and there were tears, but we had an extraordinarily enthusiastic endorsement, to my relief.'
Not everyone, though, was there to see the film. 'Sadly, Jon Norton, Mo’s widower, died just after we got the green light. It’s so sad he never got to see the film. He was so helpful to us, and he was longing for the film to be made. But he never got over Mo dying. He had a broken heart,' says McKay. 'Mo’s sister saw it and strongly approved of it, and Mo’s stepchildren, Freddie and Henrietta did too. And I really dare to hope that Mo and Jon would have as well. I think they would have loved Julie Walters’ performance. Mo’s sister and stepchildren said after their screening that there were times when they were watching the film when they really thought they were watching Mo on screen.'
The resulting film, Martin is at pains to point out, is far from downbeat. 'If you’re a director and you’re making a film about somebody who dies, and that’s the end of the story, it’s a tactical concern that you don’t want to make a film about somebody dying. You don’t want to make a film about death. That’s not what Mo was about. She was a person who helped people to live their lives, she moved the world forward. That sense of energy and life and love that was her, you really hope to capture in the film, and I think that Neil’s script and Julie’s performance help to make a film that has an energy about it, and a warmth and a humour, so that even though the events of the story are sometimes sad, the film itself adds up to a film that’s about the possibilities of life, and about one amazing life.'
