‘ WHY I DIDN’T WANT TO DO THE NEW SPITTING I MAGE’ BY STEVE NALLON, THE VOICE OF MARGARET THATCHER
When Roger Law, one of the original creators of Spitting Image, told me last year that the show was coming back, I said no. I’m way too old to do that again. The last impression I came up with that was any good was Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. Besides, satire is a young person’s game.
I was with Spitting Image pretty much from day one, and it was never an easy show to make. But it was very democratic; anyone who had ideas would be listened to. It was one of the puppeteers, Anthony Asbury, who suggested that my Thatcher character should wear a man’s suit, and my idea that the Queen Mother should have the voice of Beryl Reid.
In the Eighties, satire was needed because, with a politically weak opposition, we were sometimes the only voices shouting “No!” And satire is necessary now... we simply need to know there’s someone out there who feels the same way about all the madness around us. Politicians – or, at least, the sane ones – understand the importance of the satirical voice in society.
As well as Thatcher, I also used to do the voice of Roy Hattersley, and he very much “got” Spitting
Image. He once told me: “The great thing is that every time I go into a school to talk about Labour Party policy, they only want to know what I think of the show so it always breaks the ice.”
At our peak, we had 15 million viewers. That really was democratising satire. I can see the argument that today’s politics are beyond satire, and perhaps five years ago it wasn’t so interesting. Any satire based on people like David Cameron would have been a bit dull. Cameron’s only noticeable vocal trait was he has a slight “catch” in his voice, but no impressionist ever cracked his “attitude”, which Ian Hislop brilliantly summed up as a country squire serving tea to the builders. Today, you can’t go on Twitter without someone doing Boris Johnson impressions.
I wish the new show all the very best. I hope they have as much fun making it as we did. And I hope too that any politician watching it squirms with shame, sees the error of their ways and with haste repents their evil misdeeds. That won’t happen, of course – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth a try.