Anyone for Denis? (video)

Anyone for Denis? is a British video-taped television version of the stage play of the same name broadcast by the ITV network on 28 December 1982. The original play, first performed at the Whitehall Theatre in 1981, was written by satirist John Wells.[1]

It is based on Private Eye's 'Dear Bill' letters, purportedly written by Denis Thatcher, the husband of Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister at the time. Set in Chequers, the play parodies the couple's relationship. The title is a punning reference to the more familiar question "Anyone for tennis?"

The television production, for Thames Television was directed by Dick Clement and stars John Wells, Angela Thorne, John Cater and Nicky Henson.[2]

Cast

Background

Producers Dick Clement and Robert Fox approached John Wells about turning his "Dear Bill" columns for Private Eye into a stage show,[3][4] as had previously happened successfully with Wells's columns about another prime ministerial spouse, Mrs Wilson's Diary.[5][3][6] Wells's collaborator on the columns, Richard Ingrams, dropped out of the writing process after initial involvement, but contributed the title and the idea that the action should take place at Chequers.[3] Throughout the writing and rehearsal process, Wells updated the play with topical jokes, such as introducing Roy Jenkins as the Thatchers' butler.[3][a] The play opened at the Whitehall Theatre on 7 May 1981,[5] with Clement directing.[3] It ran until the following May.[8] Wells continued to make changes to the script as the run progressed,[9] to insert topical jokes,[3][10][b] though he found it impossible to think of any about the Falklands War.[8] After the run had ended, Wells claimed, "For the first time that I can remember I didn't have a bank overdraft."[15]

The Thatchers' daughter Carol reviewed an early performance for The News of the World and condemned the play, claiming it was not a fair portrait of her father.[16][17] Nonetheless, following a conversation with Carol, the prime minister changed her position on seeing the play and attended a gala performance,[18][c] on 12 July, to raise money for her two favourite charities, the NSPCC and Jimmy Savile's appeal for Stoke Mandeville Hospital.[18][10][20] Privately she and Denis both found it offensive,[21][22][15] particularly a scene where he mistakes a urine sample for some whisky,[23] but publicly she claimed to find it "most amusing" and "Marvellous farce".[10][24][6] After the performance, the cast attended a drinks party at 10 Downing Street,[25][8] and Wells found the real Denis Thatcher to be not the loveable buffoon of the play: "Very beady, sharp dresser, humourless and rather hard".[d] When he changed his characterisation, "Angela Thorne, who played Mrs T, said that if I went on playing him like that I'd empty the theatre, so I went back to the capering".[8]

Production

Robert Stephens, Nicky Henson, Roy Kinnear, Terence Rigby and Mark Kingston joined the cast for the televised version.[27] The Sunday Telegraph reported in August 1982 that this had just finished filming,[27] though in December its sister paper The Daily Telegraph claimed that it had been "recorded only a few days before transmission to ensure topicality".[28] It was broadcast by ITV at 8:45pm on 28 December 1982.[28]

Reception

Reviewing the broadcast in The Telegraph the following day, Richard Last called it "the funniest bit of television seen this Christmas":

"Anyone for Denis?" by John Wells out of "Private Eye," came up like a bottle of vintage port which has stood for exactly the right amount of time in the cellar. The characterisations and the farcical style had been matured to near perfection. You had to remain pretty sharply on the alert to appreciate the full bouquet, for the political allusions and the laughs flew at a speed which left no time for recovery if you missed them on the wing.[29]

He particularly praised "a tour de force by Angela Thorne, who has the PM's mannerisms off to the smallest speech inflexion and the way she clutches her handbag", and summed up: "I am not sure whether it is respectful to treat our leaders thus, but dear me, it does make life easier to bear".[29]

In The Daily Mail, Herbert Kretzmer was also positive if slightly cooler: "It is to Mr Wells' credit that he has given his farce the kind of convoluted construction which would not have disgraced even such notable farceurs as Ben Travers and Brian Rix... one of the livelier exhibits of the festive season on the box. A pity it wasn't screened earlier in the week when we sat, bloated and comatose, watching rotten old movies." Like Last he singled out Thorne as the highlight: "It is the most brilliant impersonation I have seen. It is all there, from the tilt of her head to the controlled, steel-edged voice".[30]

Legacy

At the time Anyone for Denis? was broadcast, Wells talked about making a TV series with Thorne.[31] On 23 December 1990, BBC One showed a half-hour film, Dunrulin, with the pair playing the Thatchers after her retirement from public life.[32] Planned as the pilot for a series of six episodes written by Wells and Alistair Beaton,[33][32][34] it had been made two years beforehand,[35] but the BBC had put it on hold, first for it to be remade with a less harsh depiction of her children (Wells and Beaton had had Mark unemployed and living with his parents, and Carol homeless) and then indefinitely; even when the Corporation decided to screen it following her resignation in November 1990, they took legal advice about its broadcast and gave it minimal publicity.[33][32][35] A.N. Wilson wrote in the Sunday Telegraph, "in light of what happened this autumn, to screen it seemed tasteless and cruel".[36] Richard Last in the Daily Telegraph, while renewing his praise of Thorne, felt that, if it were to run for more than six episodes, the show "might die for want of sustenance".[34] Hugh Hebert in The Guardian took the film as proof that "Margaret Thatcher is now definitively unfunny".[37]

Notes

  1. ↑ The former Labour minister had returned to British politics after a spell as President of the European Commission, announcing the formation of the SDP in March 1981.[7]
  2. ↑ William Whitelaw, a major character when the play began its run,[10] was cut when Wells decided the Home Secretary had become "an old bore who wasn't pulling his weight" in Cabinet.[11][12] In January 1982, Wells added jokes about Mark Thatcher's disappearance in the Sahara, then cut them when the Prime Minister showed signs of public distress about her missing son.[13][14]
  3. ↑ Carol Thatcher says this was the idea of Robert Fox, the producer, and her mother's adviser Timothy Bell, who claimed that it would show she was "a good sport".[17] Thatcher's former strategist Gordon Reece said he encouraged her to attend, seeing the gala "as an occasion in which the Prime Minister, in the midst of trouble, could show that she still has a sense of humour".[19]
  4. ↑ Wells also claimed that Thatcher used racial slurs when discussing the recent riots.[25] Carol Thatcher does not deny this, calling it "vintage Denis".[26]

References

  1. ↑ "John Wells (1936–1998)", Doollee.com Playwrights website
  2. ↑ "BFI | Film & TV Database | ANYONE FOR DENIS? (1982)". Archived from the original on 24 July 2013. Retrieved 23 September 2010.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Roberts, Glenys (27 April 1981). "Clement aims for a fresh foothold". The Times. No. 60912. p. 13.
  4. ↑ Thatcher 1996, p. 145.
  5. 1 2 Morley, Sheridan (22 April 1981). "Robert Fox: a lively newcomer to West End management". The Times. No. 60908. p. 7.
  6. 1 2 Carpenter 2000, p. 317.
  7. ↑ Howard, Anthony (29 May 2014). "Jenkins, Roy Harris, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/88739. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  8. 1 2 3 4 Wheatley, Keith (9 May 1982). "Last days of Thatcher". The Sunday Telegraph. No. 1100. p. 7.
  9. ↑ Howard, Philip (8 January 1982). "Books". The Times. No. 61126. p. 24.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Johnson, Frank (13 July 1981). "Will the real Mrs Thatcher smile, please?". The Times. No. 60978. p. 1.
  11. ↑ Horsnell, Michael (11 November 1981). "The Times Diary". The Times. No. 61079. p. 10.
  12. ↑ Stothard, Peter (16 December 1981). "What now for the ever loyal lieutenant?". The Times. No. 61109. p. 9.
  13. ↑ Steven, Catherine (17 January 1982). "Scripted fun over Mark". The Sunday Telegraph. No. 1084. p. 3.
  14. ↑ Pritchett, Oliver (17 January 1982). "What's driving Mark?". The Sunday Telegraph. No. 1084. p. 17.
  15. 1 2 Satchell, Tim (3 July 1983). "One of the audience who wasn't for Denis was Denis". The Sunday Telegraph. No. 1158. p. B9.
  16. ↑ Gibb, Frances (11 May 1981). "Thatcher Portrait 'not true'". The Times. No. 60924. p. 3.
  17. 1 2 Thatcher 1996, p. 146.
  18. 1 2 Watson, Peter (18 May 1981). "The Times Diary". The Times. No. 60930. p. 12.
  19. ↑ McKay, Peter (13 July 1981). "Mrs T sees the dirty done on Denis". The Daily Mirror. No. 24077. p. 7.
  20. ↑ Nevin, Charles (13 July 1981). "Thatchers enjoy a farce". The Daily Telegraph. No. 39217. pp. 1, 24.
  21. ↑ Callan, Paul (10 August 1981). "The Iron Maiden glared at me and said: 'I would like to have heckled.' I wish she had". The Daily Mirror. No. 24101. pp. 18–19.
  22. ↑ Hutchins, Chris (30 August 1981). "Maggie's night out was NO joke". The Sunday Mirror. No. 954. p. 9.
  23. ↑ Thatcher 1996, pp. 145, 147.
  24. ↑ Thatcher 1996, p. 147.
  25. 1 2 Watson, Peter (26 August 1981). "John Wells tells a new Denis Thatcher story". The Times. No. 61016. p. 10.
  26. ↑ Thatcher 1996, pp. 147–148.
  27. 1 2 Say, Rosemary (8 August 1982). "Show talk". The Sunday Telegraph. No. 1113. p. 16.
  28. 1 2 Knight, Peter (28 December 1982). "Television – Tuesday". The Daily Telegraph. No. 1113. p. 16.
  29. 1 2 Last, Richard (29 December 1982). "Denis – as good as vintage port". The Daily Telegraph. No. 39668. p. 7.
  30. ↑ Kretzmer, Herbert (29 December 1982). "Thorne in the side for Denis". The Daily Mail. No. 26912. p. 18.
  31. ↑ Bell, Jack (28 December 1982). "Maggie just grows on her". The Daily Mirror. No. 24528. p. 19.
  32. 1 2 3 "Telly tale signs". The Daily Telegraph. No. 42145. 22 December 1990. p. 11.
  33. 1 2 Brooks, Richard (23 September 1990). "The BBC scuppers satire on Thatcher offspring". The Observer. p. 3.
  34. 1 2 Last, Richard (24 December 1990). "Is there life after Downing Street?". The Daily Telegraph. No. 42146. p. 17.
  35. 1 2 Beaton, Alistair (25 June 2003). "Stop the world, I'm writing a play". The Guardian. p. A10. Retrieved 23 August 2026.
  36. ↑ Wilson, A.N. (30 December 1990). "The meek put on their armour". The Sunday Telegraph. No. 1544. p. 7.
  37. ↑ Hebert, Hugh (24 December 1990). "Why Thatcher has gone beyond a joke". The Guardian. p. 17.

Bibliography

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