Mo

Award-winning actress Julie Walters takes on the lead role in a revealing portrait of Mo Mowlam, the powerfully charismatic woman whose no-nonsense approach to politics helped achieve one of the monumental landmarks in recent British history, the Good Friday Agreement. Written by Neil McKay and based on extensive first-hand research, it's a poignant and intimate look at the life of the most popular, if controversial, Labour politician of recent times as well as an inside account of the extraordinary events which led to peace in Northern Ireland. Mo's warmth, passion and unorthodox style made her renowned throughout the country and loved by many. Away from the public gaze, she found happiness later in life with her husband Jon Norton, played by David Haig, but just months before the 1997 general election, she discovered she had a brain tumour. Defying medics, her brave battle with ill-health was played out on the public stage. 'It's a very human story. The politics is interesting, but it's almost in the background, eclipsed by Mo herself. Which everything was. She was this tornado that went through life with everything else happening around her. It's about who she was, it's about her love for her husband, it's about caring for people, it's about dealing with the tumour, it's about her courage. But it's not sentimental, that's why it's special,' says Julie Walters.