Thatcher's Ding Dong Time

Ding Dong in Trafalgar Square!

Actor Russell Brand commented, upon the death of Maggie Thatcher: "I do recall that even to a child her demeanour and every discernible action seemed to be to the detriment of our national spirit and identity. Her refusal to stand against apartheid, her civil war against the unions, her aggression towards our neighbours in Ireland and a taxation system that was devised in the dark ages, the bombing of a retreating ship -- it's just not British."

"Conservative hostility towards the BBC was a constant theme in the Thatcher era. With her death there has been a fresh spike," read an editorial in The Guardian. 

The BBC itself explains that BBC Radio "is planning to play Ding Dong the Witch is Dead, the Wizard of Oz track being bought by anti-Thatcher protesters in the wake of the former prime minister's death, on its chart show on Sunday.

"However, in what is thought to be a first for the BBC chart show, the corporation is considering having a Newsbeat reporter explain why a song from the 30s is charting to Radio 1's target audience of 16- to 24-year-olds – none of whom will remember Margaret Thatcher's controversial premiership.

"The Official Charts Company said on Thursday morning that Ding Dong the Witch is Dead was on course to reach number four, up from 10 the previous day."

The rise of "Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead" on the UK chart began as a Facebook campaign. "Make Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead number one the week Thatcher dies," was launched on Monday. It asked people to download the song originally sung in the 1939 MGM movie, The Wizard of Oz.

Glenda Jackson, a star in her own right who left an Oscar-winning, major movie-star career to become the Labor MP in England's House of Commons, attacked the late Ms Thatcher as causing “heinous social, economic and spiritual damage” and further commented “The first Prime Minister of female gender, OK. But a woman? Not on my terms.” So much for only speaking good of the dead. (As another Oscar-winning actress, Bette Davis, once reputedly said of Joan Crawford: "My mother told me to only say good things of the dead. Joan Crawford's dead. Good." Ding dong!) By the way, I wonder if Meryl Streep -- who portrayed Prime Minister Thatcher in her Oscar-winning Iron Lady performance -- will ultimately be reached for comment.

The song has not charted on US radio, incidentally.

Below, a fabulous club remix by Jack2Monet, in case you care to join our friends in the UK in their celebration!

Meryl's Latest Metamorphosis

Nobody does drag like Meryl Streep. Notice the arch similarity of Meryl as Maggie and Milton Berle as Cleopatra.

Ah, Meryl and Berle! Lovely together, no? Meryl, seen here in drag as Prime Minister, and Uncle Miltie all dolled up as a queen: Hollywood royalty!

Fairly fresh from her star turn as Julia Child in Julie & Julia, the mercurial Meryl now transforms herself into Margaret Thatcher for the biopic, The Iron Lady. (Not a spin-off of Iron Man.) And I have to admit: I love this movie!

Ms Streep is one of today's movie stars who consistently astonishes in one role after another. Singing ABBA; playing a bitter, old nun; portraying Julia Child; being Doris Day (It's Complicated), Meryl took the knowing camp turn a great screen actress (a'la Bette Davis or Joan Crawford) does once she reaches a certain age. This probably began with Devil Wears Prada.

Reunited with her Mama Mia director, Phyllidia Lloyd, the two are up to great things. Politics put aside, The Iron Lady is presented as a star-driven women's picture. Meryl's Margaret struggles to get to the top, sacrificing attention to family and denying her feelings in order to get there, all the while wearing increasingly grander frocks in the trademark, tailored Thatcher style, and in the style of the classic women's picture as well.

Framed by showing Thatcher in her dotage, the film uses the conventional biopic flashback technique to show her rise from grocer's daughter to Prime Minister of England, warts and all. It's Thatcher's megalomania and grandiosity, her dogmatic pedanticalness, as much as her failing policies, that bring her to her downfall. Weepy moments and slyly funny ones abound en route.

You can despise Thatcher but completely enjoy The Iron Lady, oddly. Certainly, as an old-Hollywood-styled star vehicle, Ms Streep is in almost every frame and she carries this film magnificently on her shoulders in one of the very best performances of her career.

You might get a glimpse of what I mean from this trailer: