A decade ago the unthinkable happened: a subtitled TV drama about people agreeing with one another went global. On paper it bore the hallmark of a barrel-scraping pitch from Alan Partridge. Somewhere between youth hostelling with Chris Eubank and monkey tennis, he might easily have proposed a new ne plus ultra in implausible entertainment concepts: Danish coalition politics.
Yet Borgen caught a thermal and soared. The show took its name (which, correctly pronounced, sounds like a Cockney saying ‘Bolton’) from the so-called fortress in the heart of Copenhagen where state business is conducted. It featured Birgitte Nyborg, a moderate heroine who snuck into Denmark’s highest office through a small centrist crack between left and right. Embodied by Sidse Babett Knudsen, whose background was all in comedy, there was steel in her eye and sandpaper in her voice – but that gigawatt smile of hers could melt a thousand icecaps.
Perhaps unconsciously groomed by Borgen, before the second series aired Danes elected their first ever non-fictional female statsminister.
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