Who was Winston Churchill? In 2017 he was portrayed both as an irascible, tub-thumping, cigar-chewing maverick by Gary Oldman in the film Darkest Hour and as a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown wracked by guilt over his role in the First World War by Brian Cox in the movie Churchill. Both films are perhaps revealing of what contemporary audiences want to see; a loner who defies the establishment and a leader who develops through a redemptive arc, suffering a crisis of conscience only to have his resolve stiffened through contact with ordinary people before re-finding his voice. It makes for great drama, but it is not history.