A Margaret Thatcher puppet and the unbroadcast script and video tape for the pilot episode of Spitting Image have taken their place alongside the works of Newton, Darwin and other treasures at Cambridge University Library – after series co-creator Roger Law deposited the programme archive at the Library yesterday (November 13).
The puppet and script are just two artefacts in Law and archivist Deirdre Amsden’s large collection of material from the iconic, infamous and multi-award winning show, which held politicians, the Royal Family and celebrities to account over 18 series from 1984-1996 with its biting cultural and political satire.
Among the first 32 boxes of material that will go on deposit at the Library are hundreds of rehearsal and post-production scripts, memorabilia, puppet designs and newspaper cuttings reflecting the controversial nature of the programme. Each script records who wrote each sketch and identifies the puppeteers and voice artists.
Spitting Image, which was nominated for nine BAFTAs (winning two) and four International Emmys (winning two), launched the career of innumerable actors, satirists and voiceover artists who went on to become household names after their work on the show.
Harry Enfield, Steve Coogan, Paul Whitehouse, Alistair McGowan, Ian Hislop, John Sessions and Deborah Stephenson all worked on the programme during its long run for Central Independent Television, as did Red Dwarf creators Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. At its peak, it reached an audience of 15 million.
Other sections of the archive to be transferred to the Library over the coming months include puppets of Mikhail Gorbachev and Alan Bennett, thousands of images from the show, hundreds of video tapes, and moulds for the puppets and their teeth. The archive also contains books, board games and files of complaints from irate viewers.
“Spitting Image undermined an entire generation’s respect for authority and institutions,” said Roger Law, who created the show with Peter Fluck, whom he first met as a teenager at the Cambridge School of Art. “One thing I’m proud of is that everyone who watched the show, including all the children, knew exactly who was running the country. Who knows that now?”
“Spitting Image was a brilliant and iconic show which demonstrated, in its own inimitable style, that politicians and the powerful were never beyond the reach of satire,” said Dr Jessica Gardner, Cambridge University Librarian. “Challenging the status quo, and holding those in power to account, Spitting Image provided catharsis for its millions of viewers, both at home and abroad, who were going through the social, economic and political upheaval of the 1980s and 1990s.
“Roger and Deirdre’s archive now takes pride of place in our already strong holdings of 18th, 19th and 20th century satirical material which includes printed works by James Gillray and the archives of the University’s famous ADC Theatre and Footlights – as well as Robert Walpole’s papers relating to his attempted suppression of the press and critics of his government.”
Friend, fellow satirist, and Private Eye Editor Ian Hislop said: “I am delighted that the Spitting Image archive has gone to Cambridge University Library and that Roger Law is to be studied properly. It is about time.”
Cambridge University Library will now begin fundraising for cataloguing and conservation work so that the archive, which also includes awards, posters, drawings and boxes of merchandise, can be opened as widely as possible to academics and researchers, as well as being shared with the wider public through events, talks and exhibitions.
Thatcher’s puppet and the Spitting Image archive now sit only a short distance away from the University’s Churchill Archives Centre, which is home to the vast archive of Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher’s personal papers, including her famous handbags, and the archives of hundreds of other political and military figures.
Dr Helen McCarthy, University Lecturer in Modern British History at Cambridge University, said: “For some time now, historians have been rethinking the 1980s and early 1990s as a distinct period in Britain's recent past, but the Spitting Image archive promises to open up an entirely new perspective on the social, cultural and political shifts of those decades.
“I've routinely shown my students clips from the programme to liven up lectures on Thatcher or Major; it's wonderful to think that researchers will soon be able to tell the Spitting Image story in full detail and situate its unique brand of satire in the wider changes of the era.”
Added Law: “Peter Fluck and I first met in Cambridge, and the first studio we ever had was in the city, so in many ways, the archive has ended up exactly where it belongs at Cambridge University Library. Having fed off the bottom from time to time, Roger Law is now hoping to become respectable!”
Image: Cambridge University Librarian Dr Jessica Gardner meets Margaret Thatcher’s Spitting Image puppet