The Long Walk to Finchley, a drama about Margaret Thatcher’s struggle to get a parliamentary constituency to fight before landing Finchley in 1959, was to have been aired on BBC4 this month. But the transmission has been deferred until later this year because the BBC is worried that the larky portrayal of Thatcher, played by Andrea Riseborough, might upset her. Would dear old Maggie really have a problem with the drama’s budding politician getting her nomination by revealing a bit of leg and using a sexy voice? I think she’d be chuffed.

Instead, BBC4 will wait until it can run programmes based on archive footage on either side of the drama to “put it into context”. Perhaps the Beeb is also “frit” – a term Thatcher favoured – because, next week, BBC4 is running a documentary in which Michael Portillo argues that she had a negative effect on her party after its 1997 defeat. Too much for the old girl to take?

Gordon Brown wants children to have five hours of sport a week at school. Now Andy Burnham, the new culture secretary, says they should have five hours of culture, too. Great. But how, given the ridiculous demands of the existing curriculum? And who will pay? If only there had been a schools’ day for Daniel Barenboim’s magnificent playing of Beethoven’s piano sonatas at the Festival Hall. That really would have been a lesson in culture.

At the interval of the Barenboim concert I went to, two youngish eastern European women nipped into the (expensive) seats beside me after spotting they were free. When twice asked to return to their cheaper balcony seats by a pleasant attendant, they resolutely refused. I rather admired their feistiness. Most Brits would have sheepishly relented.

Universal Music, the giant record company, is advertising in the religious press for “monks and men of the cloth” for an album of chants. Nice idea. Universal, though, is better known for stars like the Grammy-laden Amy Winehouse. Perhaps as a reciprocal arrangement, a Catholic order might offer her lodgings for a much needed period of rest and reflection.

The battle to succeed Liz Forgan as chairman of the heritage lottery board is into its final lap. It is Lady Cobham, the squeeze of the erstwhile Tory cabinet minister David Mellor, versus Paula Ridley, just retired as chairman of the V&A.

Cobham, a successful quango queen, was not amused when she failed at the final hurdle to become chairman of English Heritage last year. Ridley was, until recently, chief executive of the Gulbenkian Foundation, which funds the arts. Either would be fine. Their problem will be chairing a heritage lottery board with less and less cash to dole out.

The Bafta film awards turned out to be a turn-off for TV viewers, with Jonathan Ross’s jokes as flat as the broadcast.

Perhaps, instead of staying in to watch film awards ceremonies, viewers should get out and see some of the intelligent and compelling movies currently on release. I can’t think of a better time, with There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, In the Valley of Elah, The Savages, Battle for Haditha and 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days to see.

richard.brooks@sunday-times.co.uk

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