New play uncovers Margaret Thatcher’s relationship with leading scientist

Royal Holloway lecturer Adam Ganz explores the lifelong friendship between former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Nobel Prize winning scientist Dorothy Hodgkin, in a new play to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 next week.

The Chemistry Between Them looks at the friendship between these two impressive but very different women over a 40 year period. The play moves from Somerville College, at the University of Oxford, where Margaret was taught chemistry by Dorothy in the 1940s, to Chequers in 1983 where Dorothy pleads the case for nuclear disarmament, against the backdrop of increasing tension between the East and West. The play speculates on how Dorothy's influence helped Margaret break away from her small-town background and set her sights high.

As part of his research Adam, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media Arts, interviewed Lord Tebbit and novelist Nina Bawden a fellow student at Somerville, to bring to life a lesser known side of the politician - the scientist.

"I was fascinated by the story of these two women, each of whom reached the very pinnacle of their profession", said Adam. "Their political views were so far apart and yet they stayed in touch and were full of affection and mutual respect. Margaret Thatcher used to be deeply in awe of her former tutor, and would read up for days before one of Dorothy Hodgkin's visits to Chequers, one of which features in the play.

"Dorothy's story is in itself compelling; she is still the only British woman to win a Nobel Prize in a science discipline (for discovering the molecular structures of vitamin B12 and penicillin using x-ray crystallography techniques). Her husband Tom was in the Communist Party and she was banned from the US in the 1950s. For some years she was the President of Pugwash Group, a group of concerned scientists trying to get the issue of nuclear disarmament taken seriously."

Aired to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dorothy Hodgkin's Nobel Prize, The Chemistry Between Them stars Catherine Skinner as Margaret Thatcher and Jane Slavin as Dorothy Hodgkin and is directed for the BBC by Nandita Ghose.

It will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 2.15pm on Wednesday 20 August.

Provided by Royal Holloway, University of London