Name: Emmeline Pankhurst.

Age: 69.

Appearance: Streepian.

I suppose Meryl does have an Edwardian look about her. I can picture her in a bustle. Good, because she'll soon be donning one to play our Emmeline, in a film about a young woman radicalised by the suffragette movement.

Who's playing the young woman? That's Carey Mulligan.

Good heavens! And who is to play the horse? What horse?

The horse she throws herself under. Don't tell me – Meryl's playing that too! She's a chameleon! A 19th Oscar nomination in the bag – I'll place my bet right now! No, wait – hold, if you will, your horses. You've got the wrong suffragette. That was Emily Davison.

Oh. Who's playing her? No idea. She might not even be in the film.

Oh. Still, Meryl will bestride the screen once more like the acting colossus she is, portraying the firebrand founder of the Women's Social and Political Union that eventually secured people with lady parts the vote! Er, I suppose.

Will she give the famous "Freedom or Death" speech Pankhurst delivered in Connecticut in 1913? Will we see her force fed during her hunger strikes, or the way her work transformed the lives of workhouse women and orphan children? Probably not. It's described as a cameo role.

Whaaat? You don't hire a thoroughbred for a dog-and-pony show! It's still a great part. Loving wife; strong-willed, conflicted, matriarch; fearsome, groundbreaking political activist; committed fighter for an unfashionable cause. It's all the best bits of Bridges of Madison County, Out of Africa, Silkwood and August: Osage County rolled into one.

Tell me she's at least doing the accent? Oh, I'm sure she will. She's done English RP before, loads of times – Plenty, The French Lieutenant's Woman, even technically in The Iron Lady, albeit in Thatcher's gruesomely strangulated version.

But Pankhurst was born and bred in Manchester. Oh. Oh. This. Just. Got. Interesting. I'll see that 19th Oscar nom and raise you a fourth Oscar win.

Do say: "A hogshead of talent squeezed into a pint-sized role! Mulligan, bring your best game."

Don't say: "She's not an actor. She's a clattering bag of tricks and tics. It's a 35-year career built on sand and audience stupidity. See also: Christopher Walken, Mark Ruffalo, Jim Carrey. Yeah, I did say it."