Cherie on Top

Available for over a year

The General Election, 1983. Tony Blair is elected the new MP for Sedgefield. That same night, his wife Cherie Blair also stands as a prospective Labour MP, but fails to win the seat of North Thanet. The rest is history... But what if they’d each run for the other's constituency? Might Cherie have become Labour’s first female leader, and then the party’s longest-serving PM? And would Tony have become a stay-at-home dad? Cherie on Top dares to imagine this is what happened. We follow Cherie through motherhood, leadership and beyond. From the Thatcher Years, through Cool Britannia and right up to the War on Terror. Just how might things have been different if Cherie was in charge? Were the newspapers of the 1990s, and the public that read them, ready for another female PM? Would New Labour have won as many landslide victories? An alternate political history with tongue very firmly in cheek, Cherie On Top is part of Fork in the Road, a collection of dramas about significant choices and their consequences. Cast: Cherie Blair: Kate O’Flynn Tony Blair: Kieran Hodgson Alastair Campbell: Jonathon Carley Tony Benn/George Bush: Luke Kempner Margaret Thatcher/The Queen: Caroline Bernstein Equerry/photographer: David Holt Other roles played by members of the cast Written by Ben Cottam Edited by Emma Mills Sound design by Benji Clifford Original score by Evelyn Sykes and Joe Watkinson Produced by Simon Barnard Directed by Bethany Weimers A Bafflegab production for BBC Radio 4