Brexit: the Uncivil War, review: Dominic Cummings becomes the hero of the hour in this brilliant drama

Ever since it was announced, people have been getting hot under the collar about Channel 4’s Brexit: the Uncivil War – two hours of drama about the most divisive issue in Britain. Leavers got angry in expectation of a hectoring broadside from the channel most associated with left-leaning political correctness; permanently hacked-off Remainers rushed back to the barricades. Writer James Graham, political playwright and author of the 2015 TV drama Coalition, about the Cameron/Clegg pact, had to defend his work before it was even aired.

Well now it has, and – big surprise – Brexit: the Uncivil War targeted viewers with a Vote Leave message. It went inside the head of Leave campaign director Dominic Cummings (Benedict Cumberbatch) – literally – his first address was to the camera, to us; seconds later, we heard his internal thoughts as he sat in post-campaign job interviews. It’s a technique that identifies the viewer with the character, you’re on their side. Casting the Sherlock star – possibly the most popular actor in Britain – only reinforced that ploy.

So as Cummings took control of the Vote Leave message, quoting Ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu as he talked of leading the Remain campaign away from their home territory to “the ninth battlefield, a deadly ground”, and fought off a coup to replace him by a board of Eurosceptic MPs and Brexit donors, even the most ardent Remainer was being asked to cheer for the hero of the hour. His superpower, it became clear, was data. He wanted to spend the campaign’s allotted funds online – “the air war” – to get his message across to people who may never have voted before in their lives.

Only Cummings, it seemed, could hear them, these “pockets of energy deep down in the Earth… little wells of resentment that have been ignored over time”. But it was Zack Massingham (Kyle Soller), of data analysts Aggregate IQ – “we use sophisticated algorithms to microtarget populations in political campaigns” – who offered Cummings the opportunity to tap into those wells. Cummings was given all the best lines, but his expletive response when Massingham told him he could target three million votes that the Remain campaign didn’t know existed may have been his most eloquent.

His opposite number, Downing Street director of communications Craig Oliver (beautifully played by Rory Kinnear), who supervised the Remain campaign, was depicted as clueless in the face of this secret source of votes – “What’s your edge?” he asked Cummings despairingly over a pint – but at least he was given a character.

Almost everyone else was there for laughs, whether they helped change the course of British history or not. Richard Goulding was a treat as Boris. Lee Boardman was channelling Del Boy as Arron Banks. David Cameron may have called the referendum, but every line of his was essentially a gag, from “Hi, it’s Dave”, to a crack about how the worst that could happen was that it would lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom, followed by “too soon?”, to humming a tune to himself as he went back through the door of No 10 after resigning. His character was from a political satire, but this wasn’t a satire.

When Cummings asked Massingham why they weren’t having to defend their Facebook-targeted ads, the data analyst told him it was because they weren’t appearing on the timelines of the “metropolitan commentariat” so they didn’t know about them.

There was a beautiful cut between Massingham telling Cummings, “This is the new politics Dom. This is how you will win” and Eurosceptics complaining about the campaign on Chesterfield sofas in a wood-panelled room. This is the old politics, it said, this is how you will lose.

Ultimately, though, Graham may have set out to unearth the dangerous power of a new kind of manipulative data politics, but he fell in love with his lead character, and ended up creating a drama for the “metropolitan commentariat” that says, “look, you lost to someone cleverer than you”. It was brilliantly done, too.