Dead Sheep by Jonathan Maitland (paperback)

Dead Sheep
by Jonathan Maitland

It is 1989 and a seemingly invincible Prime Minister has sacked Geoffrey Howe, her Foreign Secretary. She apparently had nothing to fear from him: his speaking skills had, famously, been compared to those of a dead sheep. But, a year later, inspired by his wife Elspeth – whose relationship with Thatcher was notoriously frosty – Howe overcame his limitations to destroy Mrs Thatcher with one of the great political speeches.

Dead Sheep is a drama tinged with tragedy and comedy. Its themes – loyalty, love, political morality and Britishness – are still uncannily relevant today.

CAST: 6
DURATION: 1 hour and 50 minutes

Jonathan Maitland on Dead Sheep
“The timing was absolutely exquisite”

“The speech was one of the defining moments in modern politics and Jonathan Maitland has had the bright idea of using it as the source for an extremely entertaining play that looks at why the placid-seeming Howe was driven to such unwonted ferocity.”
The Guardian