The famous hair-do and the steely glare are all in place. All that's missing is the handbag.

This is Lindsay Duncan as she appears in Thatcher, a BBC2 drama about the political downfall of Britain's first female Prime Minister.

Billed by its makers as like a Shakespearean tragedy, it will portray the events which led to her resignation in 1990.

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Power play: Lindsay Duncan as Thatcher (left) and the real Iron Lady in 1978

This picture is of 57-year-old Miss Duncan playing Lady Thatcher in a flashback scene to 1979, just before the General Election at which her Tory Party ousted Jim Callaghan's Labour.

The drama, to be shown this winter, also includes Ian McDiarmid as Denis Thatcher, Robert Hardy as Willie Whitelaw and Kevin McNally as Kenneth Clarke.

James Fox appears as foreign policy adviser Charles Powell, while Oliver Cotton plays Michael Heseltine.

The film is said to be a sympathetic look at her betrayal by her male Cabinet colleagues, although it will also claim her own 'bloody-mindedness' contributed to her fate.

The drama is being regarded as the most  positive portrayal the BBC has ever made of the former Prime Minister.

Pensive: Lindsay Duncan on the London set of Thatcher

Plans for the drama surprised many, given the years of perceived bias against Lady Thatcher at the corporation.

This comes after revelations last year that the BBC was actively seeking Thatcher critics for its planned obituary.

The drama is loosely based on John Campbell's two-volume biography of Mrs Thatcher published in 2000 and 2003.

She will be seen as a resilient child, inspired by the words of Churchill and Rudyard Kipling.

In particular she is seen learning by heart the Kipling poem, The Law of the Jungle.

The programme will also show her enjoying tender moments with her father, who calls her 'baby', and husband Denis, who regularly calls her 'sweetie'.

But the programme will not present Thatcher without flaws.

It will claim she had a fondness for whisky and suggest that her own 'bloodymindedness' contributed to her downfall.

This comes after the BBC aired another Thatcher drama earlier this year called The Long Road to Finchley about her battled to become an MP.

A tearful Maggie leaves Downing Street for the last time in 1990