Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley
BBC4, 9pm

On the plus side, Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley was a light-hearted drama which truly worked the magic of theatrical storytelling by eliciting sympathy for its cold, ruthless, fiercely ambitious and utterly self-absorbed subject.

On the down side, it was a light-hearted drama which set out to make you feel sympathy for its cold, ruthless, fiercely ambitious ... etc.

By the time it concluded, with Mrs Thatwoman's first day as a Conservative MP in the House of Commons in 1959, you were both enlightened and mildly disgusted. Your heart did not feel buoyed. Quite the opposite.

To its credit, the programme did illuminate the old-boy establishment prejudice that almost defeated food industry research chemist Margaret Roberts as she sought, aged 23, to make her way in the post-war Conservative party, armed only with her sharp mind, appetite for work, plus her alderman father's honest advice.

As papa had told her: "Politics is about the person in front of you - always look them in the eye."

Distressingly for young Margaret, she only caught the eye of massed Tory ranks of silver-haired old buffers, leering sexists, blinkered chauvinists, braying toffs and medal-flaunting ex-military officers. Witnessing her prolonged rejection on the grounds of gender - class, too - you couldn't help but feel sorry for the grocer's daughter from Grantham, the sparky ingenue who had been Britain's youngest candidate at the 1949 General Election.

During her 10-year battle to gain a winnable Tory seat, she was conspired against by party colleagues while vainly courting five constituencies.

Merit wasn't enough to succeed as a Conservative, Margaret eventually divined. Poor wee soul.

Enough of the sympathy. Where The Long Walk to Finchley engendered prevailing emotions of disgust and dismay was in its conscious monkeying around with truth. The whole production was a sugar-coated lie - not least in employing a young and talented actress, Andrea Riseborough - far prettier, slimmer and more stylish than Thatcher ever was.

Riseborough eerily succeeded in surrendering herself to Thatcher's voice: that hectoring, flutey lilt with its compelling air of certainty. She also mastered Thatcher's deceptively coy habit of swivelling her head to the side when talking - just before making some killer point.

Tony Saint's screenplay kept its most daring bits of historical revionism till nearer the end. Did Margaret Thatcher really succeed in gaining a candidature by taking hubby Denis's advice to play on her womanly wiles?

More bluntly put, did she really turn a Tory grandee's head by adopting seamed stockings, carmine lippy, a diamond necklace and an artfully deployed burst of tears?

There was also the drama's mind-bending final scene, which fully reprised a supposed dinner-party conversation between the young Margaret Roberts, still in the process of being clumsily courted by dull and dutiful Denis, and the newly-elected Edward Heath MP.

Saint imagined exactly what it was that had transpired between the two at some nascent stage of their Westminster careers, resulting in life-long antipathy.

So what was it? Poor Ted, a confirmed bachelor, confronted by the shuddering horror of Maggie's eager suggestion: that a marriage of convenience would further both their political careers.

Margaret Heath? The woman who successfully operated Prime Minister Ted from behind? Some prospects, like finding real sympathy for Thatcher, are beyond consideration.