There is a Tom Lehrer quote ‘you have to admire the people who sing [protest] songs. It takes a certain amount of courage to…come out in favour of the things that everyone in the audience is against, like peace and justice and brotherhood.’ Channel 4’s new documentary Partygate makes coming out against partying in Downing Street during 2020 and 2021 seem controversial.

Partygate is a documentary, made of dramatic reconstructions of Downing Street parties culled from the Sue Gray report, intercut with stories of individual experiences of covid. This picture is complicated though, by the creation of a fictionalised Downing Street special adviser, Grace (Georgia Henley) who becomes increasingly alienated from the hard-partying, ‘wine time Fridays’ culture of Downing Street, embodied by Annabel (Ophelia Lovibond) and Josh (Hugh Skinner), and presided over by Boris Johnson (Jon Culshaw, in voice only).

This combination of drama and documentary weakens the whole piece, as it can not decide which it is. It leans towards documentary, making clear the sources of pieces of information, either on screen or in some cases having the characters actually say them to the audience. It also interviews the characters like they are taking part in a documentary and gets a good joke out of cutting from Helen McNamara (Charlotte Ritchie) speaking about the importance of ethics, to seeing her partying as hard as everyone else. It swings between a The Thick of It desire to have you laugh at the characters and trying to understand how those that worked at Downing Street justified their actions, leading to a horrendous moment where Annabel argues that they are above the rules.

However, it tries to force anger by inter-cutting the characters acting out the more sordid parts of the Sue Gray report (the broken swing set, the Abba party, the only objections coming from a communications stance) with the experiences of real people’s COVID-19 experiences. Whilst I do not doubt that the maker’s anger is genuine, it makes it seem like a cynical and manipulative ploy whereas the presentation of the events of Partygate alone have that effect on most of the country. The one moment during which I was moved came at the end with footage of Allegra Stratton’s resignation speech, which I doubt is what the makers intended.

There has been much debate around the speed of production. For me, it falls between two stools: it has taken too long to reach our screens that it no longer feels relevant (we’re on our third Prime Minister since Johnson) and could have been improved if it had been made with more distance, particularly as the current COVID-19 inquiry is showing us the chaos and factionalism of Downing Street. Overall, Partygate fails to work as a documentary due to its fictionalised elements and fails to work as a drama by emotionally engaging you with the characters. This, combined with the pointlessness and cynical point-making means that it is a noble failure. 

Rating – 2/5

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