CHANNEL 4’S biopic of late politician Mo Mowlam was the highest rated drama for the station for more than eight years, figures showed today.
The film, Mo, starring Julie Walters, drew an average of 3.5 million viewers when it was screened at 9pm on Sunday night.
The story of the former secretary of state for Northern Ireland’s battle with cancer had a peak audience of 3.7 million viewers, according to overnight ratings. A spokeswoman said it was Channel 4’s highest rating drama since at least 2001.
Mowlam was MP for Redcar for 14 years and northern secretary for 2½ years from May 1997 to October 1999.
She was renowned for her informal style, including referring to then Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble as “Trimble Wimble”.
US senator George Mitchell said of her: “She is blunt and outspoken and she swears a lot. She is also intelligent, decisive, daring and unpretentious. The combination is irresistible. The people love her, though many politicians do not.”
She died in August 2005 at the age of 55, four years after she stepped down as an MP. She had been diagnosed with a brain tumour in 1997, shortly before the election of the first Blair administration.
The film was written by Neil McKay after two years of research, which drew heavily on interviews with her husband, Jon, her family, political friends and others she encountered during her time as northern secretary.
Mr McKay has said Mowlam’s story “was pretty remarkable, even if she had not been secretary of state for Northern Ireland. Here was a woman who had a serious illness, much more serious than she let on to people . . .
"If you add on the fact she had to cope with illness as well as trying to unlock the conflict in Northern Ireland, we thought it was a pretty extraordinary recipe for a drama," he told Scottish newspaper the Daily Record. – (PA)