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Jonathon Carley in Cherie On Top for BBC Radio

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 Jonathon Carley in Cherie On Top for BBC Radio 

  

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The General Election, 1983. Tony Blair is elected the new MP for Sedgefield.

That same night, his wife Cherie Blair also stands as a prospective Labour MP, but fails to win the seat of North Thanet.

The rest is history…

But what if they’d each run for the other’s constituency?

Might Cherie have become Labour’s first female leader, and then the party’s longest-serving PM? And would Tony have become a stay-at-home dad?

Cherie on Top dares to imagine this is what happened. We follow Cherie through motherhood, leadership and beyond. From the Thatcher Years, through Cool Britannia and right up to the War on Terror.

Just how might things have been different if Cherie was in charge? Were the newspapers of the 1990s, and the public that read them, ready for another female PM? Would New Labour have won as many landslide victories?

An alternate political history with tongue very firmly in cheek, Cherie On Top is part of Fork in the Road, a collection of dramas about significant choices and their consequences.

Cast:
Cherie Blair: Kate O’Flynn
Tony Blair: Kieran Hodgson
Alastair Campbell: Jonathon Carley
Tony Benn/George Bush: Luke Kempner
Margaret Thatcher/The Queen: Caroline Bernstein
Equerry/photographer: David Holt
Other roles played by members of the cast

Written by Ben Cottam
Edited by Emma Mills
Sound design by Benji Clifford
Original score by Evelyn Sykes and Joe Watkinson
Produced by Simon Barnard
Directed by Bethany Weimers

A Bafflegab production for BBC Radio 4

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