The New Statesman

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1990 Special: Who Shot Alan B'Stard?

I've always known about this one. And yet, about five minutes in, I realised that I'd never seen it! It was first broadcast in January 1990. By this time I'd finally moved away from Hartlepool and had just moved into a new house in Leicestershire. Don't know why I missed it. Don't think we had a VCR at that time.

Anyway I was doubtful that the format would sustain double the usual duration, but it does just about manage it. I don't think it works as well as the usual half hour, including ads.

A relatively complicated one in which it turns out that Alan faked his own murder in a convoluted money-making scam involving a fake charity, a bet on the reintroduction of hanging and a contract to have gallows manufactured in large numbers.

But everything backfires when a talk show host who's done a bit of investigative journalism and uncovered Alan's corruption gets killed accidentally. Alan ends up being sentenced to hang.

There's a trial scene that goes on a bit too long. Otherwise it's pretty good.

I always smile at the topical gags. In this one there a joke about the Commons atmosphere being "as tense as Ken Dodd passing a tax office".

The character of Sidney Bliss returns from the first series. This time the veteran hangman is not played by Peter Sallis but by a pretty convincing lookalike / soundalike.

Dickie Davis appears as himself, presenting the public execution for television.

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This was shown a year after the end of series two, but was the only New Statesman instalment of 1990 - the third series starts a year later. Rik had already started to make Bottom (I'd forgotten that they overlapped) so perhaps it was due to time pressure.

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3:1 Labour of Love

First shown in January 1991, by which time I was, sadly, lodging with a colleague from my place of work. I remember this episode well but don't remember watching it there, oddly.

A new MP called Victor Crosby arrives, following a by-election. He's intent on usurping Alan's position as most right-wing Member of Parliament. Naturally Alan sets about undermining him immediately, in an elaborate plan involving leaking documents to the Labour Party and convincing Victor that Thatcher's planning a comeback (she had been ousted about two months before this was broadcast; perhaps a hasty rewrite was done).

It's a good one. I recall that the third series was not quite up to the standard of the first two, but we'll see.

Oh for the days when the most right-wing MP was a Tory.

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3:2 The Party's Over

The government's Chief Scientific Advisor reveals that, contrary to previous expectation, North Sea oil reserves are due to run out at any time - which will trigger a catastrophic economic collapse.

Major calls a snap election - ostensibly to make the most of it before the general public find out. B'Stard is put in charge of the campaign.

He transforms the party's fortunes; it's not long before they're way ahead in the polls. Unfortunately this wasn't the required outcome. The idea was that Alan's campaign would be so odious that Labour would win, leaving them to cope with the economic catastrophe and ultimately triggering a nationalist backlash that would sweep them into the gutters of history.

So Piers is put in charge of the campaign instead.

This is a brilliant one. I remember it best for Alan's Party Election Broadcast which is absolute comedy gold.

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3:3 Let Them Sniff Cake

Alan upsets the animal rights brigade and becomes the target of a series of assassination attempts. Meanwhile Lord Penistone, a foppish, bewildered coke-fiend acquaintance, asks Alan to acquire some cocaine for him.

Joan Bakewell, still in her 50s and still quite hot frankly, makes a cameo appearance.

I was quite amused that Peter Mandelson - soon to become Member of Parliament for Hartlepool - gets a mention. Alan argues that Kinnock should sack him, in a throwaway remark. Plus ca change.

I only vaguely remembered this one and unfortunately it seems I've entertained a false memory about it for a long time. I remembered Alan carving dolphin steaks at the dinner table. In fact he's carving a pig's head while talking about dolphins. "Just because they smile all the time, people think they aren't fish", he says.

The also now-sadly-late John Sessions, best known perhaps for his weekly appearances on Whose Line Is It Anyway - or perhaps for Stella Street - plays the cocaine-addled lord.

Michael Robbins, aka Arthur from On The Buses has a minor part. He died a year after this was broadcast.

Good one, not one of the best.

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3:4 Keeping Mum

Alan proposes an amendment to a social security bill, to require "old age homes" (as they are referred to in this eposide) to close, insisting that the elderly should be looked after by their families.

This backfires somewhat when his own mother, a disgusting old bag, turns up on his own doorstep.

This proves a massive embarrassment for Alan and Sarah when Andrew and Fergie come to dinner, although these days having Mr Mountbatten-Windsor round would be embarrassment enough on its own.

Meanwhile - Piers' father dies and he inherits a baronetcy, becoming "Sir Piers".

Always remembered this one for Alan's disgusting mum. There's a delightfully creepy moment when he almost snogs her.

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3:5 Natural Selection

Alan discovers that he's been deselected and replaced as Conservative candidate for the Haltemprice constituency by a local builder, Ken Price. Ken is about to take his company public.

So, with Sarah's help, Alan sets out to ruin him.

Also has an entertaining sub-plot about Piers' interest in stamp-collecting. And there's a nice joke about David Owen working as a waiter in one of the Commons bars.

Ken Price is played by Maurice Roeves, who was quite a familiar sight in TV and film in the '80s. He was in Who Dares Wins with Lewis Collins, as I recall. Died in 2020.

It's not a bad one but I do think we've reached the point in the canon where the quality starts to drop.

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3:6 Profit of Boom

During a highly successful lecture tour of the Soviet Union, Alan is contacted covertly by senior officials in the KGB and MI6. They want him to bring the good old days back, and reignite the cold war.

So Alan attempts to assassinate Gorbachev, with Piers' unwitting help of course.

I did remember this one, but only barely. I suspect I only saw it once.

Happier times. Set in the dying months of the USSR, when the old hostilities between East and West appeared to be fading into the past.

This is the last episode of the third series. There's a particularly grim end for Alan, which makes me wonder if it was intended as a potential finale to the entire canon. I didn't like that.

But as we shall see, the insuperable Tory MP will return.

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4:1 Back from the Mort

Alan returns from the gulag apparently no worse for wear for his three years there, although in fact this was shown in November 1992, about a year and nine months after the previous episode. Which makes no sense when you consider all the topical political references, but hey.

Anyway I remembered Alan's triumphant return from the Soviet Union, but the rest of the episode, not really.

I do recall that the fourth series is the weakest. I wouldn't say this one is bad - Rik puts his usual irrepressible bonkers self into it as usual. But Alan's scheme to overcome his difficulties - he's lost his seat in the Commons and Sarah has got all his money - is just too easy. It's not really devious or clever. Grossly unethical and illegal, yes. Brutal, perhaps. But lazy writing.

This series sees Alan climbing aboard the European Union gravy train. Would have been highly topical at the time, shortly after Maastricht.

Was glad to see that the dye job Rik was sporting in the third series has gone now. A bit of grey suits him.

Just five left, now.

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4:2 H*A*S*H

Alan, now an MEP as far as I can tell, attempts to have cannabis legalised in order of course to line his own pockets with bribes from the big tobacco companies who want to get in on the act. But he comes up against organised crime lords, who of course would prefer it to stay illegal.

I barely remembered this one. I very vaguely remembered the scenes set in the Atomium (there's quite a big of location filming in this fourth series) but that's about it.

Two big problems with this final series, I think. The EU setting just doesn't work as well as Westminster. And the plot ideas just aren't there. This one in particular is far too outlandish - there was always an element of absurdism in The New Statesman but this is beyond ridiculous.

Some of the fun has definitely gone out of the show at this point.

There's a joke about Diana that lands a bit differently now.

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4:3 Speaking in Tongues

I don't remember this one at all, but my personal life was fairly torrid when this was shown in November 1992, so it may have passed me by.

The plot, this time, is surprisingly complicated - so much so that I'm not sure I followed it completely. There's a thread about Alan upsetting the EU's translation department by having one of his porn mags translated, then antagonising them by having them relocated to a slum.

But the main element of the plot involves Alan having an Autobahn routed through beautiful German countryside instead of derelict old industrial land. Unsurprisingly it's a money-making scam. I think the connection to the translators is that provoking a strike is useful to this end, somehow.

There are some very funny moments but it's not a great one. One thing I did like is that the EU is using an experimental computerised translation device called Polyglot. Absolute science-fiction in 1991, everyday reality now.

There are some German / Nazi jokes, they do seem a bit anachronistic now. Virginia Bottomley gets a mention! I'd forgotten about her, wonder what she's up to these days?

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4:4 Heil and Farewell

Actually quite a good one. I'm sure I'd never seen it. Until I started this New Statesman-athon I was under the impression that I'd seen all of them; no wonder I couldn't remember the fourth series very well.

A pleasingly bizarre, clever plot which involves Alan taking over a group of Nazis, Hitler's cryogenically-preserved penis, Nicu Ceaușescu, Sarah and one of the MEPs attempting to assassinate Alan, and Nazi (or Romanian) secret treasure.

The episode opens with Alan watching a news item about neo-Nazi thugs attacking a hotel where migrants have been located.

There's a scene in which Alan, having assumed leadership of the local Nazis in his constituency, addresses them in a brownshirt uniform. I don't think it could be made now.

His rhetoric about so-called refugees staying in luxury hotels at the taxpayers' expense has a remarkable resonance to present day events.

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4:5 A Bigger Splash

Alan buys the supposedly recently-deceased Robert Maxwell's yacht, in order to visit Herzegovina with Piers - ostensibly to transport humanitarian aid there in the midst of the Yugoslav Wars, but in reality to help Robert - who is still alive and hiding there, having faked his own death - to escape on his old yacht. Naturally Alan stands to make a large sum of money from this - in the sum of half the pension funds he's embezzled.

Robert Maxwell's yacht is called Lady Ghislaine, named after his daughter of course and who'd have thought she'd be in the news all these years later? It still exists, called Dancing Hare now and is owned by one of Rupert Murdoch's ex-wives.

Maxwell appears himself - with seated interview footage being edited in to look like a conversation with Alan in a hotel room. Of course it's not remotely convincing but as a joke, it works.

Boycey from Only Fools and Horses plays one of the local military commanders.

I have to say I was a bit uncomfortable with this one since I have old friends who lived through that war. The hotel where the episode mostly takes place is seen to be in the middle of a war zone, with walls being raked by gunfire and bombs going off. Really very strange to set an absurdist comedy in that context. There's even a joke referring to ethnic cleansing.

A joke about Diana not being able to keep her dinner down has aged badly, as well.

Despite all that - there are some genuine laughs.

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4:6 The Irresistible Rise of Alan B'Stard

An episode which some would find quite prescient, this.

"My shares are going down faster than old jug ears does on Camilla", laments Alan. His investments in aerospace, nuclear and so on are suffering and he calculates that stirring up enough anti-EU resentment in his party will lead to a solution.

His plan is so effective that a special party conference is held. Alan's anti-European rhetoric strikes a powerful chord among the party faithful. "Are we going to allow these faceless people to seel us into euroblivion? Or are we going to stand up in this great British party and demand our country back?" he demands.

Ultimately a new, highly successful populist euro-sceptic party is formed with B'Stard at the helm.

Has a somewhat different resonance now than it did in 1992, doesn't it?

Ultimately Major resigns, Britain leaves the EU, Alan wins the election that ensues and becomes Britain's head of state.

The Camilla joke made me laugh. This was broadcast on Boxing Day 1992, only two weeks after Charles and Diana announced their separation, so it must have been made some time before that.

I'd never seen this final episode before. It's one of the better ones of the last series for me, because despite the EU angle it's mainly about domestic politics.

There was a New Statesman special made two years after this one called A B'Stard Exposed - essentially a spoof interview with Brian Walden. I did watch it but I didn't think it was that funny - it seemed more to be making a hostile political point than aiming for laughs. I probably won't bother with it.

B'Stard also pops up in an ad for the "NotoAV" campaign in 2011. Just found it on YouTube.  It's a bit jarring to see B'Stard 20 years older, all of a sudden.

Well - I did enjoy that run through the canon of The New Statesman. Especially the first couple of series, made in the late '80s. God, where has all the time gone?