Talking of Peter Hitchens, his latest Mail on Sunday column has another BBC-related section:
The Beeb’s scandalous addiction to Profumo
Here we go again, this time it’s the BBC making a series called The Trial Of Christine Keeler in which the sad 1960s call girl will be beautifully impersonated by Sophie Cookson.
You’d think nothing happened in that era apart from the Profumo Affair, which didn’t matter at all. But it was packed with scandal.
A decent drama about the Suez Crisis or the anti-railways Transport Minister Ernest Marples, who actually skipped the country (in a train), are badly needed. But they don’t involve sex. Could that be the problem?
That sent me looking up Ernest Marples as, beyond a vague recognition of his name, I know nothing about him. It turns out that he was the man behind Dr. Beeching and his notorious railway cuts (plus premium bonds, postcodes and the M1), and that he ended up fleeing the taxman and bolting to Monte Carlo in 1975 before ending up on his 45-acre vineyard estate in the Rhône Valley. Alas for Mr Hitchens though, Wikipedia has a section which says:
Use of prostitutes
When Lord Denning made his 1963 investigation into the security aspects of the Profumo Affair and the rumoured affair between the Minister of Defence, Duncan Sandys, and the Duchess of Argyll, he confirmed to Macmillan that a rumour that Ernest Marples was in the habit of using prostitutes appeared to be true. The story was suppressed and did not appear in Denning's final report.
So even if he got his BBC Ernest Marples drama - presumably to be called Marples - Mr H. would still be unable to escape the Profumo affair, or the sex.
In fact, the BBC - should they learn about this - will doubtless think that Marples is a cracking idea. I should probably start writing it now:
Marples: Dr. Beeching, I'd like to see you take an axe to the national railway system.
Beeching: (in the style of Sid James) We'll can do it together Ernie. I hear you're very handy with a chopper. (Dirty laugh)
The old adage was that Labour were suspectible to money scandals and Conservatives to sex scandals. Was never quite that neat but there was some truth to it...
ReplyDeleteBTW I seem to recall he was always referred to as Dr Beeching...
The Profumo affair was just a classic story of the period. I don't really blame the media with being fascinated by it all. It wasn't just sex - it was espionage, the Cold War, class (louche aristocrats preying on working class girls), race and immigration (Keeler's drug dealing Carribean boyfriend with the gun) and - osteopathy!...
You couldn't make it up as someone once said.
We still don't know who the "man in the mask" was...The Crown haven't yet got to that bit and it will be interesting to see how it is dealt with. :)
Oh dear, yes. I've updated the post to replace 'Mr. Beeching' with 'Dr. Beeching'. Ta.
DeleteYes, you couldn't make it up. I mean about Marples, whom nobody except P Hitchens remembers now. And a Caribbean man with a gun...surely not.
DeleteThere's another shocking old scandal that's recently been resurrected on film or tv - the Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott one. I haven't seen it and don't know if that was the BBC as well but someone must have thought there was a good reason to dust it off and place it before the public once again. Sex again though. There is no escape, Peter.
This morning a reply to a tweet that said "2019 is the bicentenary of the birth of John Ruskin. I wonder what TV & radio programmes the BBC will have prepared for us to celebrate one of our most influential men?" ran as follows:
Delete"And now on BBC One a new period drama in which John Ruskin (Idris Elba), after an unpleasant bedroom incident, decides he is really a woman. We share his pain as Ruskin undergoes prejudice, intolerance and bigotry as he tries to become accepted in Victorian Britain."
Yes Craig, I'm looking forward to that must-see TV. However, in your synopsis, you forgot the scene when Idris proclaims that Northern European Gothic Cathedrals were in fact crafted by Islamic stone masons.
DeleteI am ever grateful to this era for serving up the ultimate dry hashtag that has served me so well so often: #CallingMandyRiceDavies
ReplyDeleteApropos of not very much other than a schoolboy crush, I looked her and Ms. Keeler up.
The latter really was quite the looker. Rather spoiled things that the first one that popped up I thought was Ms. OCD. Who is, to be sure, quite the looker, if things quickly deteriorate when she opens her mouth.
I am ever grateful to this era for serving up the ultimate dry hashtag that has served me so well so often: #CallingMandyRiceDavies
ReplyDeleteApropos of not very much other than a schoolboy crush, I looked her and Ms. Keeler up.
The latter really was quite the looker. Rather spoiled things that the first one the popped up I thought was Ms. OCD. Who is, to be sure, quite the looker, if things quickly deteriorate when she opens her mouth.