Margaret Thatcher assassination story by Hilary Mantel gets stage premiere in Liverpool

Key developments are emerging from the global stage. Margaret Thatcher assassination story by Hilary Mantel gets stage premiere in Liverpool 8 minutes ago Share Save Add as preferred on GoogleIan YoungsCulture reporterGetty ImagesMargaret Thatcher was an unpopular figure in Liverpool during her reign as prime minister from 1979 to 1990A story called The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, in which award-winning author Dame Hilary Mantel imagined a plot to kill the 1980s prime minister, was controversial when it was published, and has now had its stage premiere in Liverpool. The title was designed to grab attention - and divide opinion - but the new play's makers say it explores some serious and very current issues, including violence against politicians, the actions of angry and disenfranchised young men, and how people could and should resolve their differences. When Dame Hilary published her original short story in 2014, its title was meant to provoke a reaction, according to playwright Alexandra Wood.

"Hilary Mantel, from what I've heard about her, was mischievous and she knew what she was doing and she was being provocative," Wood says. "But the play doesn't deliver on that simplicity of the title. "Wood's adaptation of The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher has just opened at the Liverpool Everyman theatre.

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Animosity towards Lady Thatcher still smoulders in the city, which largely blamed her for its industrial decline, unemployment and neglect in the 80s. But Wood says the play isn't as simple as providing wish fulfilment for opponents of the divisive former PM. "We give those people maybe 30 seconds worth of that, and actually the rest of the play is complicating it in a hopefully complex way," she says.

Marc BrennerRobbie O'Neil plays Brendan (left), with Anita Reynolds as Caroline in the playSet in 1983, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher tells the fictional story of a sniper from Liverpool who plots to murder the then-PM. He lies in wait for her at a window in Windsor, after being let into a flat by a woman who thinks he's the plumber. Dame Hilary got the idea after she happened to spot Thatcher from the window of her own flat in Windsor as the prime minister emerged from a nearby hospital after an eye operation.

The writer realised how easy it could have been to have taken a shot. "I thought, if I wasn't me, if I was someone else, she'd be dead," she told the Guardian. Dame Hilary Mantel won the Booker Prize twice, for Wolf Hall and Bring Up the BodiesDame Hilary spoke of her own "boiling detestation" for Lady Thatcher, but said she was "a fantastic character" and "the very stuff of drama".

The author set her short story a year before a very real assassination attempt, when the IRA bombed the hotel that was hosting the Conservative Party conference in Brighton.

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.