When Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister she had a reputation of being very much in command of toadying, simpering ministers, and slightly off her rocker.
Fluck and Law
Peter Fluck and Roger Law were graduates of the Cambridge School of Art. They met up with a designer, Martin Lambie-Nairn, who suggested they make a satirical puppet show lampooning political figures.. They made one show and it was liked so much that Central Television gave them a series on TV that first aired in 1984.
And the rest is history, as they say.
Spitting Image is so much part of British recent history that the artefacts from the shows have been recognised by officialdom itself. Each artefact has a little acknowledgement that reads
“Accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government and allocated to Cambridge University Library, 2023”
The exhibition is on until February and it is thanks to Tamara that we went. I was lukewarm about going but it was well worth it for the quality of the puppets, the little film clips, and some of the incidental stuff I learned..
A Grave Warning
Before you step foot into the exhibition, on the wall outside the doors is a notice that says as follows:
This exhibition contains themes of nudity, and caricatures which people may find upsetting.
The satirical television programme Spitting Image was first broadcast in 1984. The show was a phenomenon, shaping British culture in the 1980s and early 1990s. Spitting Image pushed boundaries as it satirised, sometimes brutally, British politics and society. Many saw it as offensive then and some still do.
Parental guidance: Spitting Image was broadcast after the watershed and DVD releases have been rated as 15.
In fact the only nudity on show that I could see was the bum of Edward VII in a political cartoon from 1901.
Here are the texts from a couple of the signs at the exhibition
Writing A Show
Spitting Image was written as a team. After the seventh episode of series one, the writing was led by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who left after series three to write Red Dwarf. Grant and Naylor wrote much of the celebrity material, while Private Eye’s lan Hislop and Nick Newman came in to write up-to-the-minute political satire. Comedian Ben Elton and screenwriter Richard Curtis also wrote for early series of the show. Other content was submitted by freelance writers. While comedy writer Vicky Pile and comedian Jo Brand did write sketches for the show, the writer’s room— like the puppet factory—was dominated by men.
Characters
Spitting Image was the first television show with such outrageous caricatures of real people. Notably, 1984 marked both Spitting Image’s start and the final series of the BBC’s major political satire programme Yes Minister. The two shows were very different. Spitting Image was anarchic and populist, while les Minister was a gentle satire on the relationship between Civil Servants and Ministers. While Yes Minister focussed on the rarefied world of Whitehall with fictionalised characters, Spitting Image exposed living politicians, royalty, and celebrities to a much more vigorous form of satire on TV.
Incidental Stuff
Incidental stuff I learned is that Peter Cook set up the Establishment Club in London (the name taken from an ‘alternative’ club in pre-war Berlin) and that Spitting Image launched the careers of other people.
See what names you recognise.
A Final Word
Being a satirist you have to take what you dish out. And Roger Law did not hold back when he caricatured himself.
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