President EVIL

Winona Ryder and John Turturro star in a wartime drama that imagines a far-right regime in the White House

- SEAN MARLAND

NEW DRAMA

The Plot Against America

Tuesday, Sky Atlantic HD, 9pm & 10.10pm

David Simon and Ed Burns won a host of awards for their visceral portrayal of inner-city drug culture in The Wire, and now the acclaimed writers are tackling fascism in a dystopian new series based on a novel by Philip Roth.

The unsettling, alternate-reality tale begins in 1940 with America looking on in horror as the Nazis cut a brutal swathe across Europe. Meanwhile, reallife US aviator Charles Lindbergh, who completed the first solo flight across the Atlantic, is planning a similar far-right regime on American soil.

The nightmare scenario is put in motion after Lindbergh defeats Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election and moves into the White House.

‘In real life, Lindbergh had great boyish charm, he was a brave aviator, and was regarded as the greatest American hero of his generation,’ reveals Simon. ‘But he was also fundamentally a protofascist, and he very much admired Adolf Hitler.’

PREJUDICE

As Lindbergh’s presidency ushers in a wave of antiSemitism, Jewish Americans are forced to choose how they should react in the face of intolerance.

‘Every one of the characters struggles with that question of, how do you respond when the norms of your society are being challenged in the most basic way?’ says Simon. ‘Where do you stand? Do you resist? Run? Fight?’