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    ‘We had no political agenda’: the White House hosts a West Wing TV reunion

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    The marine band struck up a familiar theme. The door of the Oval Office swung open. Out strode the president and first lady to address an expectant crowd – that is, the real first lady, Jill Biden, and the president that fans of the TV show The West Wing used to secretly crave: Jed Bartlet, alias actor Martin Sheen.After a decade in which US politics has often felt like the work of a hyper-imaginative screenwriter, with ever more unlikely plot twists including the election of a reality TV star, it felt strangely natural to see Sheen stepping into the shoes of Joe Biden as his show’s theme music filled the Rose Garden.“We just came from the Oval,” said Jill Biden. “But even though Joe is away hosting leaders of Australia and India and Japan in Delaware, he wanted to make sure that President Bartlet and his staff had a chance to see the Oval Office again.”Sheen and fellow cast members had come to the White House to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first episode of The West Wing, the seven-season drama about an idealist liberal president and his fast-talking staff.On Friday, in warm sunshine, there were references to “big blocks of cheese” – a tradition on the show of requiring presidential staffers to meet with eccentric or offbeat constituents – and the walk-and-talk dialogues in which characters moved through the halls at high speed. Waiters passed out bourbon-and-ginger ale cocktails called the Jackal, a reference to press secretary CJ Cregg’s dance and lip-sync routine in one episode.Sheen – who has said his character was a conglomeration of Democrats John F Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton – rolled back the years. In classic Bartlet mode, he exhorted the crowd to find something worth fighting for, “something deeply personal and uncompromising, something that can unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh”.View image in fullscreenThen Aaron Sorkin, the show’s creator, declared: “Our cast will live on as one of the best in the history of television,” and recognised those in attendance. Among them were Richard Schiff, who played communications director Toby Ziegler; Janel Moloney, who played assistant Donna Moss; and Dulé Hill, who played the president’s body man, Charlie Young.Sorkin also noted the absence of a few high-profile actors – Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford and Rob Lowe, better known to fans as Cregg, Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn – who he said were on set elsewhere. “The rest of us are apparently unemployed,” he joked.After the crowd laughed, a voice chimed in from Sorkin’s right. “Not yet!” Jill Biden said. It was a nod to the fact that her husband still has four months left in office – and a quick retort worthy of Bartlet’s exchanges with wife Abbey Bartlet, played by Stockard Channing.The West Wing remains a favourite of many who now work in Washington. Among those spotted in the Rose Garden were the House foreign affairs chair, Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, and Joe Walsh, once a Tea Party-aligned Illinois representative who is now a fierce critic of former president Donald Trump.Sorkin reflected: “We had no political agenda. We were trying to do a good show every week. But the greatest delivery system ever invented for an idea is a story and, once in a while, we’ll hear from someone who was inspired to go into public service because of our show. And that’s something that 25 years ago this week, none of us could have foreseen or even dared to hope for.”Born in the last year of the 20th century, the show illustrates that there is nothing so remote as the recent past. Its run coincided with the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was off the air by the time Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden were elected and long gone when the Covid-19 pandemic and January 6 insurrection unfolded.Sorkin continued: “The show was idealistic, aspirational and romantic. Over the years, I’ve noticed that during times of peak political tension, pundits will warn us not to expect ‘a West Wing moment’.View image in fullscreen“They mean not to expect a selfless act of statesmanship. Not to expect anyone to put country first. Don’t expect anyone to swing for the fences or reach for the stars. But the fact is, West Wing moments do happen and Dr Biden, we saw proof of that on the morning of July 21.”That was the day Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election after a disastrous debate performance and growing concerns over the 81-year-old’s mental and physical condition. For months, however, Biden had been in denial. If anyone wants to look for an on-screen parallel, it might be Bartlet hiding a multiple sclerosis diagnosis while running for president.The final season of The West Wing saw Bartlet passing on the torch to fellow Democrat Matthew Santos, played by Jimmy Smits. He becomes America’s first Latino president after defeating Senator Arnold Vinick of California, portrayed by Alan Alda as the kind of old school Republican who is now an endangered species in the Trump era.Nothing, perhaps, dates The West Wing more than that. More

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      TV tonight: what President George W Bush really did on 9/11

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      TV tonightTelevision & radioTV tonight: what President George W Bush really did on 9/11 In a new documentary, the former US president and his team recall the 12 hours after the September 2001 terror attacks. Plus: Daisy Haggard returns in Back to Life. Here’s what to watch this eveningAmmar Kalia, Phil Harrison, Jack Seale, Ali Catterall and Paul HowlettTue 31 Aug 2021 01.20 EDT9/11: Inside the President’s War Room8.30pm, BBC OneWhere Monday night’s Surviving 9/11 told the story of some of the civilians who found themselves in the midst of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, this documentary analyses 12 hours in the US presidency as the news and its aftermath unfolded. Former president George W Bush recalls hearing of the attacks at a primary school, while members of his team revisit their unpreparedness for an attack like that, as the press records their reactions. Ammar KaliaSaving Lives at Sea8pm, BBC TwoMore heroics from the volunteers of the RNLI, the charity that became a political football earlier this summer for rescuing refugees in trouble at sea. Tonight, they plunge into a rip current to save a mother and son and help a man who has fallen off a cliff. Phil HarrisonThe Secret Life of the Zoo8pm, Channel 4This week at Chester Zoo, the keepers are trying to create a romantic atmosphere to encourage a pair of Kenyan antelopes to mate. Meanwhile, there’s potential danger in store as keepers try to get blood samples from the crocodiles, and George, a Malagasy giant rat, undergoes major surgery. AKLong Lost Family9pm, ITVIt’s never too late to reconnect with family. Tonight’s searcher is Roy, 86, who lost touch with his daughter nearly 60 years ago, when his ex-wife moved without warning. All this happened in New York, so his hopeful quest for a reunion is now a transatlantic task. Jack SealeBritannia 9pm,Sky AtlanticIt’s gone from bad to worse for Queen Antedia after being sold into slavery, as the brilliantly mad druids’n’drugs drama continues. Her new home is a hovel and her owners are the pits. But there is an escape route on the cards … Meanwhile, an unwitting Cait meets the man who blinded her father. Ali CatterallBack to Life10.35pm, BBC OneDaisy Haggard’s ingenious comedy-drama about ex-convict Miri Matteson’s return to her small-town home after an 18-year sentence begins its second season. We pick up six weeks on from Miri’s release as she tries to fend for herself, although she is still avoiding her mum and best friend Mandy. AKFilm choiceGran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008), 10pm, ITV4Recent widower and embittered Korean war vet Walt Kowalski only cares about his car, a pristine Gran Torino. He reserves his meanest snarls for the Hmong family next door, until violent local hoods cause him to befriend and defend them. It’s a wry, elegiac drama, with Eastwood magnificent as the old curmudgeon. Paul HowlettLive sportParalympics 2020 9am, Channel 4. Coverage of the swimming finals.Cricket: Saint Lucia Kings v Trinbago Knight Riders 2.40pm, BT Sport 1. T20 match from Warner Park Sporting Complex.Baseball: Tampa Bay Rays v Boston Red Sox 12midnight, BT Sport ESPN. American League match from Tropicana Field.TopicsTelevision & radioTV tonightDocumentaryFactual TVTelevisionUS politicsTV comedyDramaReuse this content More

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      Vote Bartlet: The 10 best episodes of The West Wing

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      If ever there was a good time to get into The West Wing, this is it. The election cycle has been so monstrous – and potentially ruinous – that it has left us all craving the stately certainty of an Aaron Sorkin screenplay, as the rapturous reception to the cast’s reunion demonstrated. And if that is the case, help is at hand. Today, The West Wing will appear as a box set on All 4 in the UK, allowing you to access the entire series. The imperial first few seasons. The wobbly middle. The unexpectedly rousing climax. All of it.But the US election is just a few days away, and there are 156 episodes. Watching the whole thing in time is an almost impossible task, which is why I have selected the 10 best episodes (in chronological order) for you to pick out and savour.In Excelsis Deo (season one, episode 10) More

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      Cynthia Nixon: 'Will Donald Trump leave quietly? I don't know'

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      Cynthia Nixon Zooms on to my screen from some decking in Long Island. The blue-grey sky is dramatically ominous, a sea breeze blows her hair into photogenic chaos and she is, of course, pretty damn famous – especially to those of us of the Sex and the City generation. So the overall effect is of watching a film, but one that is talking straight to you. Yet, within what feels like barely five seconds, we are discussing the end of democracy, with only the briefest detour to cover the impact wrought on her New York home by coronavirus.“When you’re in New York City, what it reminds me of is the time right after September 11th. It was, in a way, less terrifying than it looked to people watching from the outside, just as it’s strangely less scary to have cancer than to watch someone you love have cancer.”She packs a lot into a sentence – history, terrorism, love, cancer – and is clearly political to her bones: not at all interested in things that simply happen (pandemics and their attendant disruptions) but instead in systems, choices and worldviews. “In terms of the overall political scene across the country, it’s just terrifying. People keep writing these articles about the end of democracy, and it does feel like a real possibility when you have a president who’s trying to sink the Post Office.”At 54, Nixon is a relatively recent discovery as a prominent advocate of the Democratic party’s furthest left: she stood against Andrew Cuomo in the 2018 election for the governor of New York, a race in which she now considers she was doomed from the start. “I was triply burdened,” she says. “I was a woman. I was a gay woman. I was a person who had been an activist for a long time, but had never held political office, and obviously the governor is a really big place to start. And I am an actress, which is a barely coded word for ‘bimbo’ or ‘ditz’. I don’t, in my personal life, ever call myself an actress – I call myself an actor. But Cuomo tried to use that word as often as he could, in a very derogatory way.” More

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      Mrs America's Uzo Aduba: 'It's worth examining the shortcomings of our feminist heroes'

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      Shirley Chisholm was a woman of many firsts. She was the first black woman elected to Congress, the first black candidate to seek the presidency, and the first woman, full-stop, to participate in a US presidential debate. She introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation, most championing racial, economic and gender equality, and is often credited as paving the way for Barack Obama. In doing so, she occupied a space that many black women recognise: the solitary seat as the only such face at the table.Uzo Aduba, who plays Chisholm in the acclaimed new FX series Mrs America, says that this was a key factor in bringing this formidable politician to life. “That feeling of being the ‘only’,” she says, speaking via Zoom with a warm smile on her face. “It was important to get that right.”It’s certainly something Aduba can relate to. The 39-year-old made history in 2015 as the first female actor to win both a drama and comedy Emmy for the same role – the part of Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren in Orange Is the New Black. “It was an honour to represent Chisholm,” she says, “because she’s not often portrayed. I just wanted to get her humanity.”The humanity of the much-mythologised feminists of the 1970s is a central part of the series, which spotlights the aims and the internal struggles of the activists who fought to pass the Equal Rights Amendment – as well as the conservatives who opposed it, led by staunch anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly. A lauded ensemble cast boasts Hollywood giants and household names: Cate Blanchett as Schlafly, Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem and Tracey Ullman as Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique. More