This Friday marks the 60th anniversary of Sir Winston Churchill’s death aged 90.
The World War 2 prime minister, once voted the greatest Briton by the general public, rightly continues to be a historical icon, with his bust now back in President Donald Trump’s Oval Office.
Over the years, Churchill has been depicted many times on screen, with Gary Oldman’s Oscar-winning performance in Darkest Hour focusing on his early days as PM.
Aside from the battle to defeat Hitler and Nazi Germany, another underdog part of Churchill’s life were his Wilderness Years.
The great man served as Chancellor of the Exchequer during the late 1920s and was out of office for the next decade.
During this period, Churchill was considered to be in “the winter of his days” as he continued as an MP, arguing that Hitler’s Germany was rearming and preparing for war. By the late 1930s, he stood against Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany and, by the declaration of war, was promoted to First Lord of the Admiralty. The Wilderness Years have been adapted a few times from Richard Burton’s 1974 TV movie The Gathering Storm to Robert Hardy’s 1981 TV series The Wilderness Years. But it is another that is arguably the greatest Churchill film.
The movie in question is the BBC-HBO TV film The Gathering Storm, a 2002 remake of the Burton original. A hidden gem, Albert Finney stars in his BAFTA and Emmy award-winning performance as Churchill opposite Vanessa Redgrave as his wife Clemmie. Executive produced by Ridley Scott and Tony Scott, this film co-stars Derek Jacobi, Ronnie Barker, Jim Broadbent, Tom Wilkinson, Hugh Bonneville and even a young Tom Hiddleston as Randolf Churchill.
The Gathering Storm is streaming on NOW.
