Alan B'Stard signs up to become a New Labour statesman
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Your support makes all the difference.If Tony Blair needed confirmation that things can only get worse, the imminent defection of Alan B'Stard to New Labour will surely suffice.
When Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran created the monstrous Tory MP for the 1980s television satire The New Statesman, the Conservatives were mired in allegations of sleaze. Now the writers believe that Labour has sunk so low the time is ripe for B'Stard's return - having switched sides to become Mr Blair's money-grubbing henchman with responsibilities including prices for peerages.
The actor Rik Mayall will reprise the role of the principle-free politician in a touring stage play, The New Statesman - Episode 2006: The Blair B'Stard Project, which will open next month, 14 years after the original finished its run on television.
Alan B'Stard today is a millionaire thanks to market speculation, and his love interests include the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He also proves the key to solving the mystery of where Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are located.
The writers said they had considered the idea before but only now was the Labour Party unpopular enough - and right-wing enough - for the idea to work. Gran said: "We wondered about Alan changing sides a long time ago but New Labour was popular then. Now the time is right. You can't do something as beastly as we are going to do unless the party is lying on the floor with a big 'kick me' sign on it.
"We are running like mad to keep up with the Government. They are making our lives quite difficult because obviously there are satirists in No 10. We never thought they would be quite so ghastly quite so quickly and that they would give us so much ammunition."
For Marks, the project is tinged with sadness as he is a card-carrying member of the Labour Party in despair at current events. "They're hypocrites. I believed everything Blair told me from 1994 to 1997, then he declared war and now he's selling honours. God knows what else he's done. I think they have become corrupt."
The potential damage to Labour of the revived Alan B'Stard was evidently spotted by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, whose staff cancelled an invitation to Marks and Gran to tea after it emerged what they were working on. And Mr Blair should beware. When Marks and Gran were producing the second series of The New Statesman, the Tories ousted Margaret Thatcher and they were forced to delay filming to re-write the script.
The play opens at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, on 19 April at the start of a four-month 15-venue tour. It is hoped it will then go into the West End of London.
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