MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands Play revived

A television play praising Margaret Thatcher's handling of the Falklands War is to be shown by the BBC fifteen years after it was shelved amid allegations of political bias.

It is called the Falklands Play, by a well-known playwright, Ian Curteis, who says: "It is about how and why a democracy goes to war". He says it is sympathetic to Margaret Thatcher. "She was known as the Iron Lady but she was also a mother and a very emotional woman".

She is depicted as a humane leader who cried when she was told about the loss of life when HMS Sheffield was sunk by an Argentine Excocet missile.

The play also shows her criticising the Foreign Secretary, Francis Pym for lack of resolution.

The play was commissioned by the BBC but never shown. The BBC Director General then, Alasdair Milne, liked the play but other BBC bosses did not. So production was stopped just before the 1987 general election, prompting Conservative Party accusations that the BBC was biased in favour of the Labour Party.

Margaret Thatcher won that election anyway as she had the previous election at the height of her popularity after the Falklands victory.

Mr Curteis says he appealed to the new BBC Director General, Greg Dyke, to go ahead with the play for the 20th anniversary of the conflict and he agreed.