When Jeffrey Met Maggie

Satin sheet satire ribs Tories.

by Matt Wells, The Guardian, November 21, 2002

She may have been the Iron Lady but the notoriously soulless former prime minister seems to have had a distinctly saucier side, according to a BBC drama.

In a satire, to be screened on BBC1 on Sunday week, the life of Lord Archer is portrayed "through his own eyes" as, out of jail, he dictates his autobiography.

It turns out that his "mystery alibi woman" on the night he was reportedly engaged with a prostitute, is -- Margaret Thatcher.

Written by Drop the Dead Donkey creator Guy Jenkin, in this mock life of Archer, Thatcher -- Greta Scacchi -- does a striptease in a steamy effort to seduce the former Tory deputy chairman.

Archer -- Damian Lewis -- is later seen cavorting with her on satin sheets, revealing her hip etched with a heart tattoo and  the letters JA.

Jeffrey Archer: The Truth, opens with the warning: "... only the facts have changed."

Lewis said: "It's a delusional retrospective of the fantasies of a man remembering himself very differently from the way it was."

Caption: The Truth: Damian Lewis as Archer and Greta Scacchi as Thatcher.