The Project: Press views

The docudrama follows New Labour's rise to power

Press critics review BBC political drama, The Project.

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The Guardian

If it was supposed to attract an audience largely indifferent to politics, I doubt The Project succeeded. Last night's first episode, Opposition, may have comprenensively charted New Labour's rise to Power, but there was little with which to engage on an emotional level. This was a bit of a problem, given that drama is supposed to be engaging.

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The Daily Telegraph

The Project worked so well because it always fulfilled two key requirements. On the one hand, it never forgot that it was a drama - and so needed the events and characters to embody the themes, not merely to illustarate them. On the other, it knew that ideas can be dramatic in themselves.

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The Times

The story of how the former college chums lose their political innocence proceeds at the pace of drying paint, and that dullness is scarcely relieved by the bonking scenes that punctuate it at half-hour intervals, bringing us such memorable lines as "I've never had sex under a Labour Government."

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Daily Express

The Project was the first part of the much-hyped docudrama telling the real story of the spin doctors and special advisers who licked New Labour into electable shape. It took three years to research, apparently. God knows why. There's nothing in this fictional tale, set against a backdrop of real events, to make you draw breath.

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The Daily Mail

As a drama, The Project lacks the emotional, character-driven thrust we might have expected, veering more towards Kosminsky's background as a documentary film-maker.