HeyJaredPolitical Fictions: political drama on screen and on the page
Join Cory Hazlehurst and Mark Pack as are digest some of the best - and some of the worst - depictions of politics in fiction: film, TV and even the occasional book.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 7
- Latest publication
- Sep 17, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 9, 2026
Latest episodes
The West Wing: Let Bartlet Be Bartlet (#17) (opens the original)
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Mark and Cory talk about a giant of American political drama for the first time this week, as they tackle The West Wing. They talk about Let Bartlet Be Bartlet, the nineteenth episode of series one. In it, Mark wonders if The West Wing is actually the epitome of the "Boris Johnson school of politics", Cory outmanoeuvres Mark into confirming we will record a Christmas Special about Love, Actually and they debate whether the central message of this episode has been misunderstood. Next time, we're
The Death of Stalin (#16) (opens the original)
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Mark and Cory talk about Armando Iannucci's 2017 black comedy The Death of Stalin. You can watch the film for its exploration of the nature of evil, think about whether the license that is taken with the truth is completely appropriate, or just wait for the amazing memes to appear on screen. The Guardian article on the film's accuracy which Cory mentions can be found here, whilst the academic critique that Mark was looking forward to reading so he could disagree with it can be found here. After
The Absence of War, with John Cotton (#15) (opens the original)
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Our normal programme is interrupted with an emergency episode! David Hare's play about a fictionalised version of the 1992 general election, The Absence of War, is on BBC iPlayer for a limited period. So before it goes, Mark and Cory talk about it with the former leader of Birmingham City Council, John Cotton. They discuss the reasons Labour lost the 1992 election, whether the play has the right lessons about how to be successful in politics, the dilemmas facing leaders and why political dramas
Jeffrey Archer's 'First Among Equals' part 1, with Shane Whaley (#14) (opens the original)
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Cory and Mark are joined by Shane Whaley of the Spybrary podcast this week. Shane has picked for us to watch First Among Equals, a prime time ITV political drama from the 1980s. As its episodes total up to 494 minutes, this time we're dipping into the first episode only. Take a listen to see if we - and you - want to watch the rest of the series. The series is based on the book by Jeffrey Archer, once a highly praised and successful novelist whose books were festooned with quotes praising his li
The Division Bell Mystery, with Elinor Taylor (#13) (opens the original)
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Mark and Cory are joined by Elinor Taylor for our first book! It is Ellen Wilkinson’s The Division Bell Mystery, a political thriller disguised as a golden age detective story. It is written by one of the country's first female MPs and is full of convincing and vivid political detail about what it is like being a bag carrier for an important minister. The plot's setting is accurate right down to some key architectural detail on which it all hinges. But is it also a good murder mystery? Find out
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