Grievous bodily charm
Thirty years ago viewers could not get enough of Channel 4’s mini-series GBH
A CLASH between an ambitious council leader and a stressed headmaster made for compulsive viewing 30 years ago.
The latest TV offering from Boys From The Blackstuff writer Alan Bleasdale saw Robert Lindsay take the role of the charming but ruthlessly ambitious politician Michael Murray, while Monty Python’s Michael Palin played headmaster Jim Nelson.
“Oh, come on Jim. You know who I am,” wheedled Murray, only to be rebuffed by Nelson’s “Wouldn’t interest me if you were Bishop Tutu – wearing one”.
The seven-part political satire launched on Channel 4 on June 6, 1991 with Murray as a hard left council leader with ambitions to climb to the very top.
He set about orchestrating a city-wide strike against the government’s policies, but the he pickets failed to o turn up at Nelson’s school.
Murray does his best to try to persuade him to join the strike and, when that at fails, sends along ong thugs to cause trouble.
Murray employed his long-suffering brother Franky (Philip Whitchurch) as his driver and Dame Julie Walters played their mum Lillian – although she was actually three months younger than Robert Lindsay and had to be aged up for the part.
Lindsay Duncan played the mysterious Barbara Douglas who sets out to seduce sed Murray and an the secrets of o his childhood were revealed as the series went on. The series was based in p part on the po political landsca scape of Liverpool in the 1980s and the cast included a number of actors who had all regularly appeared in Alan Bleasdale dramas including Andrew Schofield, Tom Georgeson and Michael Angelis. Noreen Kershaw played Murray’s wife, who is heard but never seen. Robert Lindsay picked up a best actor BAFTA for his performance as Murray.