Brexit the inside story: Benedict Cumberbatch plays the mastermind of the Vote Leave campaign in a new drama, and says it will have you on the edge of your seat
- Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Dominic Cummings in Brexit: The Uncivil War
- Channel 4 drama depicts the planning behind the leave and remain campaigns
- Benedict revealed there was lots of information the public didn’t have access to
- He told of meeting the mastermind behind the Leave campaign, Dominic
- He says Dominic Cummings was a blank canvas for him to portray
We all know the outcome of the Brexit referendum, but not many know how the Vote Leave campaign achieved that monumental result.
Now a new Channel 4 drama, Brexit: The Uncivil War, reveals the brains behind the victory – and it’s not Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage or major donor Arron Banks.
Brexit was masterminded by a strategist unknown outside Westminster, a geeky, balding northerner called Dominic Cummings.
Played by Benedict Cumberbatch, Cummings was responsible for the slogan Take Back Control, credited with swaying many undecided voters.
He was also responsible for the infamous battle bus that carried the banner stating that £350 million of EU money could be poured into the NHS if Vote Leave won.
Benedict Cumberbatch (pictured as Dominic Cummings) spoke about starring as the mastermind of the Leave campaign in Channel 4’s Brexit: The Uncivil War
‘I was excited to try and understand the intellectual process behind coming up with those messages,’ says the drama’s writer James Graham.
‘And how you try to win a campaign like this when you’re on the back foot.’
Cummings had previously worked for Michael Gove in the Department of Education and was brought on board for Vote Leave by a cross-party group including Labour supporter John Mills and MEP Daniel Hannan.
The Remain side were led by then-Prime Minister David Cameron and his deputy George Osborne, though the drama features neither and instead focuses on Cameron’s director of communications Craig Oliver, played by Rory Kinnear.
The two-hour programme reveals the in-fighting, attempted coups and planning that went into both campaigns.
‘We all know the outcome, but it plays out as a thriller,’ says Benedict.
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‘There’s so much information the public didn’t have.
‘The choice at the ballot box was so binary: black or white, yes or no, and you lose a lot of political nuance with that.
‘It was complex and it’s all very intriguing, when you get to the end it almost feels like it could go either way.’
The drama offers light relief from the thrilling plot with the appearance of characters including Boris Johnson (pictured the fictional Boris) and Nigel Farage
Dominic Cummings (pictured) was responsible for the slogan Take Back Control, credited with swaying many undecided voters
It begins with Vote Leave setting up base in a scruffy office with a total lack of resources compared to the Remainers.
They were in the minority until two things happened: Cummings came up with Take Back Control, then he contacted AggregateIQ, a Canadian technology firm that used special software to find three million disenfranchised voters, then bombarded them with social media adverts.
‘Elections always involve finding the undecided voters,’ says Benedict.
‘But in a modern context that involves technology.
‘We’re only just starting to understand the sophistication of this.’
When it came to portraying Cummings, Benedict shaved his head, wore a wig, put contact lenses in and learnt a new accent.
He also met Cummings in person.
‘Dominic was a blank canvas for me, I didn’t know he looked like this and had flat Durham vowels,’ says Benedict.
‘He was very charming and helpful. It was wonderful to understand him as a person.’
Because of the nature of the plot, Cummings and Craig Oliver only appear together in one imagined scene.
In shock after the murder of MP Jo Cox, they meet over a pint to understand where the other is coming from, and how the arguments have run so out of control.
‘It’s nice to bring them together,’ says Benedict.
Benedict (pictured as Dominic) says the drama is both amusing and horrifying in equal measure
‘It’s fabricated but as the main characters it’d be strange not to have them share a scene.
‘It’s a conversation people were having across the country, within families, communities or political parties, trying to understand what was happening.’
The drama also has light relief in the form of Boris Johnson (Richard Goulding), Nigel Farage (Paul Ryan) and Arron Banks (Lee Boardman): larger-than-life characters played with gusto.
One scene shows Farage arriving at Banks’s country estate by helicopter before a cackling Banks sprays him with Champagne.
And a scruffy Johnson is seen waving shyly at Gove at the opera before they joined Vote Leave.
‘When it’s funny, it’s very funny,’ says Benedict.
‘There are some really entertaining characters.
‘With history, in order to understand the present you have to look at the past, however recent.
‘This is lifting the lid on a moment in time to make us understand and be amused, horrified, educated.’
Brexit: The Uncivil War, Monday, 9pm, Channel 4.
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