Churchill’s Secret Sunday at 8 p.m., WGBH 2
Here are a half-dozen reasons to watch this new PBS “Masterpiece” movie, which is based on Jonathan Smith’s 2015 novel “The Churchill Secret,” which is based on fact.
1) It will provide much to compare and contrast. After Winston Churchill, 78, suffers a major stroke at a state dinner in 1953, his people quickly do everything to hide the news from the public. Can you imagine that happening now, when every political figure’s pimples have had a turn or two in the 24-hour news cycle?
2) Michael Gambon plays Churchill.
3) Lindsay Duncan, who plays Lady Churchill, is one of those extraordinary British actresses you’ve probably seen and admired but never identified. My favorite Lindsay Duncan moment was in “Rome,” when, as Servilia of the Junii, she kneels outside her enemy’s house chanting, “Atia of the Julii, I call for justice.” She’s always memorable.
4) Michael Gambon plays Churchill.
5) The supporting cast is filled with British actors you may have admired before without knowing their names. Romola Garai, excellent in “The Hour,” “The Crimson Petal and the White,” “Emma,” and “Atonement,” plays Churchill’s nurse, the movie’s one entirely fictional character. And Matthew Macfadyen from “Pride & Prejudice” and “Ripper Street” and Tara Fitzgerald from “Game of Thrones” (she was Selyse Baratheon) play two of Churchill’s children.
6) At the end of “Churchill’s Secret,” you will be all queued up to watch the return of “Indian Summers” at 10 p.m. The “Masterpiece” series about the waning days of the British Raj is a smart melodrama about impossible love and social rebellion.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewGilbert.