How much of the Boris Johnson drama This England is true?

Like with any adaptation of real world events, there have of course been some elements of scenes and dialogue based on informed guess work rather than the absolute truth - but just what is based on reality and what isn't?

Read on for everything you need to know about just how much of This England is true.

How much of This England is based on real life?

This England is of course detailing the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it actually starts earlier in 2019, showing clips of Johnson's election campaign. The action then runs through to May 2020.

There are segments of the show which are strictly true - those which feature the Coronavirus daily briefings, any public statements or press conferences and Johnson's televised addresses.

Then, there are scenes which take place behind closed doors - intimate moments between Johnson and his then-fiancée Carrie, cabinet meetings and scenes set in care homes and hospitals at the height of the crisis.

Of course there will be some creative license taken with these. The drama of course says it is "based on" real events, and it is not an exact representation of them.

However, when speaking with RadioTimes.com and other press, the series's writer Michael Winterbottom explained that the team went to great lengths to make sure their research was accurate. In fact, the research was the starting point for the whole endeavour.

"It seemed to me what would be interesting was the research - to get a chance to talk to as many people as we could, whether it's in Number 10 or the Department of Health or NHS doctors, nurses, care home workers, scientists," Winterbottom said.

"And I think once we got into research it felt like all those people had a different perspective on the virus and on the pandemic, a different experience of it. And that it would be, in a way, the best way by using our research, but also the best way it seemed to me at the time of then dealing with what we had all just lived through.

"So really I think it was probably in that researching phase where it kind of became, 'Okay, well, why don't we just sort of do it as almost like a diary, almost like a day-by-day diary of what happened.'"

He continued: "By then there was quite a lot of material out there, either the official minutes of SAGE meetings or from conversations with people, so we were able to sort of start to piece together pretty much like, this was what was happening on March 4th, this was what was happening on April 12th and so on.

"It was always a question we wanted more to try and represent as accurately as possible different people's experiences, including Boris's."

However, Winterbottom did say the team didn't speak directly with Johnson during their research, nor did Carrie star Ophelia Lovibond speak with his wife. Therefore, their private conversations are likely largely fictional.

How accurate were the This England care home scenes?

Some of the most difficult-to-watch scenes throughout the series take place in hospitals and care homes, as people are infected with the virus and many tragically die.

The series also shows the real strain key workers in those enviroments were under during the pandemic, and Winterbottom revealed that to achieve a level of accuracy and authenticity in this, real key workers played themselves.

When asked whether much of the series's dialogue was improvised, as is common in Winterbottom's work, he said: "I would say there's not a massive amount of improvisation. I mean, some improvisation, but not a huge amount in the political strands.

"Then obviously, there are other strands where there's more, especially in the care homes. So for example, one of the care homes is actually a real care home, where those were care workers playing themselves, playing the experiences they had the year earlier.

"So obviously in those are areas there's a lot more improvisation, particularly in the relationship between them and the patient. Equally, in the hospital a lot of the people playing nurses were nurses, and so there's that sort of improvisation, which is about trying to capture the texture of what it's like."

Winterbottom added that they had hoped to film in more real hospitals in this same way, but weren't able to. However, he said the team did share sections of the script with the communications department of the NHS and with hospitals to make sure they thought it was "a fair representation of what was happening".

What segments of This England have been made up?

Other than the specific details of private conversations, perhaps the most notable element of the series to be entirely fictional is the dreams that Boris has sporadically throughout the series.

However, Winterbottom explained that even these were grounded in the truth of Johnson's particular experiences at the time, thinking about how they would inform his psyche, as well as in the truth that many COVID patients experienced intense, hallucinatory dreams.

Another segment where Winterbottom said the drama strayed into a more 'imaginary' area was the sixth and final episode, after Boris leaves hospital.

He said: "The first five episodes up until Boris comes out of the hospital were very much based on reports and press, then the last one is a little bit more, in a way, sort of imagining Boris.

"It's a bit more of an imagined version of what Boris might be as he recovers from COVID, sort of learning lessons, possibly, from the first wave, learning lessons from his experience of COVID about how to behave in future. Then obviously Dom Cummings since we wrote it has come with a different version of Boris post-COVID, so we try to include that at the end as well.

"So we sort of can have, 'Well, this is how we imagined Boris might be, this is how someone else saw him to be.' And everyone has their own version. Just because Dominic Cummings says one thing doesn't mean to say it's true, doesn't mean to say it's not true."

All six episodes of This England are available now on Sky and NOW – find out more about how to sign up for Sky TV. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what's on tonight.

The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe now and get the next 12 issues for only £1. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times podcast with Jane Garvey.