Cultural depictions of prime ministers of the United Kingdom have become commonplace since the term's first use in 1905.[1][2] However, they have been applied to prime ministers who were in office before the first use of the term. They are listed here chronologically from the date of first appointment as prime minister.
Simon Osborne in Blackadder the Third where he is depicted anachronistically as a teenager. A younger brother is also mentioned, who Blackadder refers sarcastically to as "William Pitt the Even Younger", "Pitt the Toddler", "Pitt the Embryo", and "Pitt the Gleam in the Milkman's Eye".
"Lloyd George Knew My Father" is a well-known ditty, with the lyrics "Lloyd George knew my father/Father knew Lloyd George" repeated incessantly to the tune of "Onward, Christian Soldiers". The origin and meaning of the song are disputed. One theory is that it references the peerages-for-cash scandal.[6][7]
Bonar Law is briefly mentioned several times in Ken Follett's historical novel Fall of Giants (Book One of the Century Trilogy).
Bonar Law plays a supporting, if off-screen, role in Upstairs, Downstairs. He is even said to have recommended family patriarch, Richard Bellamy, to be offered a peerage.
Rebecca West's novel Sunflower features a portrait of Bonar Law as the statesman Hurrell.[11]
Arnold Bennett's novel Lord Raingo features Bonar Law as the chancellor of the exchequer Hasper Clews.
Lord Dunsany gently satirised the quiet way in which government decisions are made which affect many (but with little input from the many) in his short story The Pearly Beach. It begins "We couldn't remember, any of us at the Club, who it was that first invented the twopenny stamp on cheques. There were eight or nine of us there, and not one of us could put a name to him. Of course, a lot of us knew, but we'd all forgotten it. And that started us talking of the tricks memory plays..." The name they were groping for was that of Bonar Law.[citation needed]
The character of ‘’Stanley’’ (referred to in his only book appearance as ‘’No. 2’’) from the British children’s book series ‘The Railway Series’’, a Baldwin Class 10-12-D locomotive, was named after Baldwin.[12]
In Howard Spring's 1940 novel Fame is the Spur, later made into a 1947 film and a 1982 TV adaptation, the lead character Hamer Shawcross loosely resembles MacDonald; it is the story of a working-class Labour activist who grows into an establishment politician.[13]
In the twenty-fourth episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, original footage of MacDonald entering No. 10 Downing Street is followed by a black-and-white film of him (played by Michael Palin) doing a striptease, revealing garter belt, suspender and stockings.
In Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, Old Brigadier Ernest Pudding during his initial interwar retirement "started in on a mammoth work entitled Things That Can Happen in European Politics. Begin, of course, with England. 'First,' he wrote, 'Bereshith, as it were: Ramsay MacDonald can die.' By the time he went through resulting party alignments and possible permutations of cabinet posts, Ramsay MacDonald had died."
The main character in the BBC Radio 4 Saturday Play episode That Man Attlee. Broadcast on 15 September 2007, it was written by Robin Glendinning, with Bill Wallis playing Attlee.
Played by his grandson Richard Attlee, in the TV series Dunkirk in 2004, and in Jerome Vincent's "Stuffing Their Mouths with Gold", the story of how the National Health Service came to be. Broadcast on Radio 4 on 4 July 2008, the day before the 60th anniversary of the founding of the NHS.
In Harry Turtledove's novel, The Big Switch, Eden appears as a member of a group of disgruntled MPs who are gathered together by Ronald Cartland after Britain allies with Germany in mid-1940.
In Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series of alternate history science-fiction novels, Eden first appears as the representative of the United Kingdom at the peace talks with the alien Race in Cairo. As it does not have nuclear weapons at that point in the story, the United Kingdom is not fully recognised by the Race, but is also too powerful for them to fully discount. Eden attempts to secure full recognition of the United Kingdom by the Race, but fails. Atvar, the Race's commander, notes that Eden is highly competent but attempting to negotiate from a position of weakness. In the succeeding series, Colonization, Eden is prime minister in 1962, leading a government which cultivates close relations with the German Reich. When Germany and the Race go to war, Eden refuses to lend British military assistance to the Reich, though formally supports German efforts against the Race.
Music
Eden is mentioned in a song by The Kinks, "She's Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina", from the album Arthur (1969).
Plays
Eden appears as a character in the play Never So Good (2008)—portrayed as a hysterical, pill-addicted wreck, spying on members of his own Cabinet by ordering government chauffeurs to report on their comings and goings. He is shown being overwhelmed by the chaos of the Suez Crisis and eventually forced out of office by his Conservative Party colleagues, at the urging of the American government.
Eden appears in Peter Morgan's stage play The Audience (2013); in the premiere, he was played by Michael Elwyn).[17] In the 2015 West End revival version, featuring Kristin Scott Thomas as the Queen, Eden is portrayed by Scottish actor David Robb. His scene in the play is a prediction of Eden's audience with the Queen the day before the invasion of Anglo-French forces in Egypt. The conversation that takes place features Eden attempting to feed selected information to the Queen rather than the whole facts about the Suez crisis and the Queen's reaction to the proposed invasion. In the play's 2015 rewrite, the Queen makes reference to Tony Blair, seen in a flashback, and his proposal to send troops to Iraq, likening it to the conversation she'd had with Eden 50 years previously about Suez.
Television
As Secretary of State for War in 1940, Eden authorised the setting-up of the Local Defence Volunteers (soon renamed the Home Guard). In the film of the TV sitcom Dad's Army, the (fictional) Walmington-on-Sea platoon is formed in response to Eden's radio broadcast. Platoon second-in-command Sergeant Wilson is flattered when his resemblance to Eden is remarked upon.
The first season of the UK TV series The Hour revolves around the Suez Crisis and the effect of journalism and censorship on the public's perception of Eden and his government, as a metaphor for modern Western military involvement in the Middle East.
During his premiership in the early 1960s Macmillan was savagely satirised for his alleged decrepitude by the comedian Peter Cook in the stage revue Beyond the Fringe.[21] 'Even when insulted to his face attending the show,' a biographer notes, 'Macmillan felt it was better to be mocked than ignored.'[22] One of the sketches was revived by Cook for television. Cook would later claim that his impression of Macmillan 'was in fact extremely affectionate. I was a great Macmillan fan. He did have this somewhat ludicrous manner, but merely because it was the first time for some years that a living Prime Minister had been impersonated on the stage, a great deal of weight was attached to it.'[23]
Set in 1963 during the Profumo scandal, Hugh Whitemore's play A Letter of Resignation, first staged at the Comedy Theatre in October 1997, dramatises the occasion when Macmillan, staying with friends in Scotland, received a political bombshell, the letter of resignation from Profumo, his war minister. Edward Fox portrayed Macmillan with uncanny accuracy, but the play also explores the involvement of MI5 and the troubled relationship between Macmillan and his wife (played by Clare Higgins) who had made no secret of her adultery with the wayward Tory MP, Robert Boothby. The play was directed by Christopher Morahan.
Eden's Empire (2006)
Macmillan was played by Kevin Quarmby in Gemma Fairlie's production of James Graham's play Eden's Empire at the Finborough Theatre, London, in 2006.
Never So Good (2008)
Never So Good is a four-act play by Howard Brenton, a portrait of Macmillan against a backdrop of fading Empire, two world wars, the Suez crisis, adultery and Tory politics at the Ritz. Brenton paints the portrait of a brilliant, witty but complex man, tragically out of kilter with his times, an Old Etonian who eventually loses his way in a world of shifting values. The play premiered at the National Theatre in March 2008, directed by Howard Davies with Jeremy Irons as Macmillan.
The Night They Tried to Kidnap the Prime Minister (2009), played by Tim McInnerny – a BBC Radio 4 drama based on a real-life kidnapping attempt in 1964.[26]
The Lavender List (2006), played by Kenneth Cranham – a BBC Four fictionalised account by Francis Wheen of the Wilson Government of 1974–1976, with Gina McKee as Marcia Williams and Celia Imrie as Wilson's wife. The play concentrated on Wilson and Williams' relationship and her conflict with the Downing Street Press Secretary Joe Haines.
The Plot Against Harold Wilson (2006), played by James Bolam – aired on BBC Two on 16 March 2006. The drama detailed previously unseen evidence that rogue elements of MI5 and the British military plotted to take down the Labour Government, believing Wilson to be a Soviet spy.
Longford (2006), played by Robert Pugh – Channel 4 drama on the life of Lord Longford. In one scene, Wilson was seen dismissing Longford from his cabinet in 1968, in part because of the adverse publicity the latter was receiving for his public campaign supporting Myra Hindley, then incarcerated for her involvement in the Moors Murders.
A Viking in the Asterix story Asterix and the Great Crossing (1975) is named Haraldwilssen in the English translation, because the translators felt his physical features resembled Wilson.
In The Alteration by Kingsley Amis, set in a parallel universe dominated by the Papacy, Pope John XXIV is depicted as a Machiavellian Yorkshireman (a thinly-veiled portrayal of Wilson) who controls the population of Europe through Malthusian means including the use of bacteriological warfare and war with the Ottoman Empire.
He is briefly referenced in the Beatles song "Taxman", together with his political opponent Edward Heath.
Johnson's bumbling mannerisms and distinctive hairstyle have also made him the subject of parody:
In the 2008–2012 children's TV cartoon series Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom, the mayor of Fairy Town, voiced by Alexander Armstrong, is based on Johnson, who was mayor of London at the time
Johnson is portrayed as a half man-half dog personage who would rather engage in acts of canine behaviour like chasing his tail than answering questions, in Headcases. He is voiced by Jon Culshaw[41]
The music video for Stormzy's "Vossi Bop" features backup dancers donning wigs similar to Boris's hairstyle and throwing them on the ground just as the line "fuck the government, fuck Boris" comes in[42]
↑ Sigler, Carolyn, ed. (1997). Alternative Alices: Visions and Revisions of Lewis Carroll's "Alice" Books. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. pp.340–347.
↑ Dickinson, Evelyn (20 June 1902). "Literary Note and Books of the Month". United Australia. II (12).
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