Benedict Cumberbatch in his role as Dominic Cummings in 'Brexit: The Uncivil War'. Courtesy Channel 4/House Productions.
Benedict Cumberbatch in his role as Dominic Cummings in 'Brexit: The Uncivil War'. Courtesy Channel 4/House Productions.
Benedict Cumberbatch in his role as Dominic Cummings in 'Brexit: The Uncivil War'. Courtesy Channel 4/House Productions.
Benedict Cumberbatch in his role as Dominic Cummings in 'Brexit: The Uncivil War'. Courtesy Channel 4/House Productions.

Benedict Cumberbatch on why you should give 'Brexit' a chance


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Almost three years after the UK’s shock 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU, you’re probably bored of Brexit. The daily reports of the latest farcical events in the British parliament long since passed from comic to tragic, and finally just to plain: “I don’t care anymore.”

The rolling news cycles continue to offer a regular diet of “No Deal,” “People’s Vote,” “Backstop,” and constant schoolyard squabbling between parties who can’t even agree on what they want for themselves, never mind debate with their opponents, who, frustratingly, don’t know what they want for themselves either.

As such, you'd be forgiven for an inclination to pass over Toby Haynes' Channel 4 movie Brexit: The Uncivil War, when it screens on BBC First this Sunday, and becomes available on demand on OSN Play immediately afterwards.

You would, however, be wrong. Brexit, it turns out, is incredibly gripping, moving, and often hilarious stuff when you take all the boring bits out.

The real-life drama stars Bendict Cumberbatch as Dominic Cummings, the lead strategist of the official Vote Leave campaign, with Rory Kinnear as his Vote Remain counterpart, Craig Oliver.

A new twist on a tired tale

By focusing on these behind-the-scenes Machiavellis, rather than the MPs we’re so sick of seeing trading insults on the news, writer James Graham delivers a refreshing take on a well-worn subject, as well as a jaw-dropping look at some of the questionable tactics of the Vote Leave campaign (the official campaign has already been found guilty of breaking electoral law, while the splinter Leave.EU campaign is the subject of a criminal investigation), and the Remain team’s utter inability to counter Cummings’ techniques of data mining, social media manipulation, and misinformation. Cummings’ campaign may well have changed the way elections are fought forever.

From fake social media accounts to demonstrable falsehoods and a completely new software machine to identify off-radar possible supporters via intense data mining, then bombard them with misinformation, nothing was out of bounds in Cummings’ campaign. Even the campaign's slogan "Take Back Control" brilliantly created the false reality that Britain outside the EU was the status quo, and the Remain campaign were the interlopers trying to change this.

The result today is a divided Britain - as brilliantly demonstrated when a focus group meeting for the Remain side descends into a virtual brawl - and still no plan on Brexit. Cummings, incidentally, eschewed the traditional path of focus groups and did his research by talking to angry people in pubs.

Cumberbatch's Cummings comes across not so much as an ardent Leaver as a man on a mission to prove the efficiency of his new methods. There's an element of the actor's portrayal of Alan Turing from The Imitation Game, or even Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate in his Cummings – a socially awkward, single-minded genius with tunnel-vision on a singular mission, regardless of the morality, and despite the doubts of his peers, who regard him with at best suspicion and at worst outright disdain.

Why Cumberbatch was 'wary'

The actor agrees that for Cummings, who he met as part of his research for the role, the referendum campaign was perhaps as much about the journey as the destination: "From what I know, for him it's probably more about a certain status quo within politics that he felt was about short term careerism, and not about the idealism and drive to accept and develop change that is happening globally, whether it's environmental, political, social, economic," the actor tells The National.

Benedict Cumberbatch met Dominic Cummings as part of his research for his role in 'Brexit: The Uncivil War'. Channel 4/House Productions
Benedict Cumberbatch met Dominic Cummings as part of his research for his role in 'Brexit: The Uncivil War'. Channel 4/House Productions

Indeed, in the film Cummings concedes that the state of proto-civil war that has erupted in the British parliament and on its streets since the result was not what he intended, but lays the blame firmly at the feet of the old-school politicians’ inability to adapt.

Intented or not, however, Cumberbatch admits he had some misgivings about portraying a man who has been directly responsible for causing such ruptures in British society: “It really is the most divisive issue in politics that I can remember in my lifetime,” he says.

“As Dominic says in the drama, ‘Referendums are a really dumb idea’ precisely because they are so divisive. They suggest that really complex choices can be reduced to simple binaries of yes or no, red or blue, black or white. It’s far more complex than just the question of in or out on the ballot paper. Far, far more complex than that. So I suppose I was wary when I heard about the project.”

In 'Brexit: An Uncivil War', Benedict Cumberbatch plays Dominic Cummings, former adviser to the education secretary Michael Gove. Getty.
In 'Brexit: An Uncivil War', Benedict Cumberbatch plays Dominic Cummings, former adviser to the education secretary Michael Gove. Getty.

Cumberbatch may have been wary of the role for another, more personal reason – Cummings is certainly not the Sherlock and Dr Strange star's most dashing role, and the hair and wardrobe departments did their bit to downplay the actor's boyish good looks too.

“To be honest, unless I think it’s going to help a character, I try and leave all vanity at the door and let people help design the look or the image of a character,” Cumberbatch says. “I’ve got the face I’ve got. What’s great about being an actor is being able to transform. Sure I’ve got more hair than Dominic, and different coloured eyes, but so what? What I like about it is there’s no vanity about it, that’s a good thing. And it’s also really just about trying to give truth to a character. That’s what it’s always about.”

As Dominic says in the drama, 'Referendums are a really dumb idea' precisely because they are so divisive. They suggest that really complex choices can be reduced to simple binaries of yes or no, red or blue, black or white.

Cumberbatch gives a typically on-point performance, with great support from a cast including Kinnear, Paul Ryan and Lee Boardman as the oafish Nigel Farage and Aaron Banks, leaders of the rival Leave.EU campaign and Richard Goulding as Leave poster boy, the former Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

Far from being yet more boring Brexit rhetoric, the film is a political tragicomedy of almost Shakespearian proportions, while Haynes also threads in enough archive footage to remind us that the incredible events unfolding on screen actually, really happened, and not in some unfathomable period of history, but now.

The film almost renders political satire like The Thick of It and Veep redundant – why make this stuff up when you can just portray real events? Where to next for the likes of Armando Ianucci and Chris Morris, when the daily goings on in the UK parliament, not to mention the Whitehouse, make their most outrageous work look like turgid political drama?

'I hope it will make people think'

If I can’t convince the Brexit-weary to watch the film, perhaps Cumberbatch can.

The actor concedes that many would probably never wish to hear the word “Brexit” again, but this film has far more to it than the seemingly never-ending saga of Britain’s EU membership, or lack of: “It’s a really great story, beautifully told. And it is, after all, a story about arguably the most important single moment in this country for decades, and about the extraordinary way it came to pass,” he says. “But it’s also very funny, particularly with the depictions of some familiar figures. James Graham has written a brilliant, funny, engaging script that deals with some powerful and important themes while never losing its lightness of touch.”

Nigel Farage (Paul Ryan) and Arron Banks (Lee Boardman) in 'Brexit: The Civil War.' Courtesy Nick Wall / Channel 4/House Productions
Nigel Farage (Paul Ryan) and Arron Banks (Lee Boardman) in 'Brexit: The Civil War.' Courtesy Nick Wall / Channel 4/House Productions

Cumberbatch adds that, in the age of social media, the film has a further important point to make about how our data is used: “I hope it will make people think not just about the Brexit campaign, but how they are targeted more generally by political and commercial organisations, and particularly how the data they provide to these organisations is used. Whatever side of the argument you were, or are still on – whether you’re despondent, terrified, elated, hopeful, optimistic – James has written a fantastically entertaining drama.”

Brexit: The Uncivil War premieres on BBC First at 8pm tonight and will be available for streaming on demand on OSN Play immediately afterwards

How much of your income do you need to save?

The more you save, the sooner you can retire. Tuan Phan, a board member of SimplyFI.com, says if you save just 5 per cent of your salary, you can expect to work for another 66 years before you are able to retire without too large a drop in income.

In other words, you will not save enough to retire comfortably. If you save 15 per cent, you can forward to another 43 working years. Up that to 40 per cent of your income, and your remaining working life drops to just 22 years. (see table)

Obviously, this is only a rough guide. How much you save will depend on variables, not least your salary and how much you already have in your pension pot. But it shows what you need to do to achieve financial independence.

 

Netherlands v UAE, Twenty20 International series

Saturday, August 3 - First T20i, Amstelveen
Monday, August 5 – Second T20i, Amstelveen​​​​​​​
Tuesday, August 6 – Third T20i, Voorburg​​​​​​​
Thursday, August 8 – Fourth T20i, Vooryburg

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PROFILE OF HALAN

Started: November 2017

Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: transport and logistics

Size: 150 employees

Investment: approximately $8 million

Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Water waste

In the UAE’s arid climate, small shrubs, bushes and flower beds usually require about six litres of water per square metre, daily. That increases to 12 litres per square metre a day for small trees, and 300 litres for palm trees.

Horticulturists suggest the best time for watering is before 8am or after 6pm, when water won't be dried up by the sun.

A global report published by the Water Resources Institute in August, ranked the UAE 10th out of 164 nations where water supplies are most stretched.

The Emirates is the world’s third largest per capita water consumer after the US and Canada.

Indoor cricket in a nutshell

Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai

16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side

8 There are eight players per team

There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.

5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls

Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership

Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.

Zones

A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs

B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run

Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs

Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full

U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES

UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)
Saturday 15 January: v Canada
Thursday 20 January: v England
Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh

UAE squad
Alishan Sharafu (captain), Shival Bawa, Jash Giyanani, Sailles Jaishankar, Nilansh Keswani, Aayan Khan, Punya Mehra, Ali Naseer, Ronak Panoly, Dhruv Parashar, Vinayak Raghavan, Soorya Sathish, Aryansh Sharma, Adithya Shetty, Kai Smith

The Sand Castle

Director: Matty Brown

Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea

Rating: 2.5/5

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Honeymoonish
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APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)

Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits

Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine

Storage: 128/256/512GB

Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4

Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps

Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID

Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight

In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter

Price: From Dh2,099

'Panga'

Directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari

Starring Kangana Ranaut, Richa Chadha, Jassie Gill, Yagya Bhasin, Neena Gupta

Rating: 3.5/5

Living in...

This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.

Dubai Rugby Sevens

November 30-December 2, at The Sevens, Dubai

Gulf Under 19

Pool A – Abu Dhabi Harlequins, Jumeirah College Tigers, Dubai English Speaking School 1, Gems World Academy

Pool B – British School Al Khubairat, Bahrain Colts, Jumeirah College Lions, Dubai English Speaking School 2

Pool C - Dubai College A, Dubai Sharks, Jumeirah English Speaking School, Al Yasmina

Pool D – Dubai Exiles, Dubai Hurricanes, Al Ain Amblers, Deira International School