List of The New Statesman episodes

The New Statesman is a British sitcom made in the late 1980s and early 1990s satirising the United Kingdom's Conservative Party Government of the period. It was written by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran at the request of, and as a starring vehicle for, its principal actor Rik Mayall.

Episodes

Series 1

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
1	1	"Happiness is a Warm Gun"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	13 September 1987
Alan B'Stard is elected as the Conservative MP for the constituency of Haltemprice in Yorkshire after having the brake lines cut on the cars of his Labour and SDP opponents. However, Sir Malachi Jellicoe, the local Chief Constable, has uncovered evidence proving Alan's complicity, and blackmails Alan to do "God's will".
2	2	"Passport to Freedom"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	20 September 1987
When Alan's wife, Sarah, announces that she has inherited 200,000 shares of Ocelot Motors and now plans to divorce him, Alan is panic-stricken. Seeking to see Ocelot bankrupted, he forges a letter from Margaret Thatcher to the chairman of Ocelot authorising them to de-unionise their workforce and begin cutting wages.
3	3	"Sex is Wrong"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	27 September 1987
Alan meets with Lady Virginia, a prudish aristocrat who has written a pamphlet entitled "Sex is Wrong". Learning that she will be forced to skip the Tory party conference, he convinces her that he can get the pamphlet published. He then arranges to have it printed up with full-colour illustrations of sex acts.
4	4	"Waste Not, Want Not"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	4 October 1987
Norman, Alan's transsexual accountant, tells him that the depot in Hull, where he left a shipment of nuclear waste he was hired to dispose of, is scheduled for demolition. Roland (Alan's father-in-law) offers to let Alan store his waste in a disused quarry he owns, but says he will charge Alan through the nose for it.
5	5	"Friends of St. James"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	11 October 1987
Alan encounters his former classmate Lance Okum-Martin, who tells him that he is now President for Life of the tropical Republic of St. James. Alan plans to open an offshore bank on St. James which can be used for tax evasion. When Alan learns that Lance is a con man who just wants to steal his money, he forces Piers to join him in posing as a pair of skyjackers and steal the money himself.
6	6	"Three Line Whipping"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	18 October 1987
Humiliated on live TV, Alan takes out his anger on a cabbie, seemingly killing him. Alan stows the body in the back of the cab and intends to drive it into the country and set it on fire. After dropping them off, he discovers that the cabbie is not dead, merely unconscious. When the police arrive, he convinces them that the cabbie kidnapped him, and the cabbie is hauled away.
7	7	"Baa Baa Black Sheep"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	25 October 1987
Roland informs Alan that he is to be deselected at the next Tory party meeting. Alan takes the advice of Norman (now called Norma), to cozy up to the owner of an American fast food chain, Lamb Burger Guzzler, which will be locating its factory in either Haltemprice or Wales. Alan takes a meeting with Mr. Guzzler, taking Norma to pose as his wife. At the meeting, the Guzzlers invite Alan and Norma to join them in a swinger party, Alan is naturally forced to refuse. This turns out to be the right move, as Mr. Guzzler reveals that he was just testing Alan's moral fortitude.

Special

Comic Relief (BBC1 - 5 February 1988) – Not technically an episode of The New Statesman, this was the first annual Red Nose Day telethon held by the Comic Relief charity. In the final skit, Alan takes a meeting with Margaret Thatcher, who cannot see him because she's busy in a meeting with Cecil Parkinson "and a whip." making Rik Mayall break character briefly and doing a snippet of Rick before saying, "But of course, that was a different series."

Series 2

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
8	1	"Fatal Extraction"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	15 January 1989
Alan discovers that there is £1 billion worth of oil beneath the Hackney Marshes. Unfortunately, the land is owned by the Borough of Hackney, and the only person who can sell it is Georgina Pritt, the socialist leader of the Hackney Council. Alan persuades her to sell him the land, but her fellow members of the Council discover this and move to expel her from the party. Piers lets slip to Georgina the real reason for Alan's interest in the Marshes. As her last act as Council leader, she sells the land to herself and promptly retires.
9	2	"Live from Westminster"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	22 January 1989
After the introduction of television cameras to the House of Commons, Alan becomes a superstar. He starts selling product tie-ins. However, Sarah sells her life story to a national tabloid, exposing all of his dark secrets. He implores Thatcher to stop the publication, but she says that she ordered Sarah to write the memoir to cut him down to size. Rebuffed, Alan tricks Piers into blowing up the warehouse where all the copies of the tabloid are stored, saying that the paper contains an exposé about Thatcher's personal life.
10	3	"The Wapping Conspiracy"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	29 January 1989
Looking to recruit under-aged girls to have sex with, Alan becomes the patron of the "Young Ladies' Recreational Association". However, a reporter for The Times publishes photographs of him engaged in group sex with several of the girls. Alan responds by suing The Times for libel. The reporter admits that he doctored the photos to implicate Alan, and Alan is awarded £500,000 in damages. As Alan celebrates with Piers and Sarah, the reporter arrives and explains to the others that he and Alan had set the whole thing up to scam the paper.
11	4	"The Haltemprice Bunker"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	5 February 1989
Piers Lonsdale, a financial journalist, offers to let Alan in on a scheme to exploit Augusto Pinochet's new slavery programme for a profit, for an investment of £500,000. Alan intends to get the money from Helmut Drucker, an ex-Nazi whom Alan has been blackmailing for years. Alan meets him at a railway station, only to discover that Piers Fletcher-Dervish has tipped off the media. Panicking, Alan pretends to have caught Drucker and in the ensuing struggle, he pushes Drucker in front of a train.
12	5	"California Here I Come"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	12 February 1989
Alan and Piers fly to Hollywood, where Alan wants to pitch the idea of a Dallas-style soap opera set in the House of Commons. His pitch is rejected, and Piers accidentally samples some cocaine, which makes him rabidly royalist. Alan is propositioned for bondage sex by Donna Nightingale, a soap opera star. At her apartment, she announces that she needs some Quaaludes, which are in her car. Alan goes to get them and ends up locking himself out of the building. When the police come to arrest him, he swallows the entire bottle. Alan awakes in the Malibu jail to find Piers is also arrested for possession of cocaine.
13	6	"May the Best Man Win"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	19 February 1989
Piers is engaged to be married, but Alan falls in lust with his fiancée, Clarissa. After he seduces her, she insults his skills as a lover and declares that, once she is married, she will see to it that Piers no longer acts as Alan's lackey. Now determined to break up the wedding, Alan tries to kill Clarissa, but Clarissa foils him at every turn and the wedding is completed as planned. At the wedding reception, Alan ensures that the entire feast is laced with salmonella and botulism.
14	7	"Piers of the Realm"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	26 February 1989
Alan is in Yorkshire to attend a horse race in which his horse is the favourite. Returning to London, he is shocked to discover that Piers has been promoted to be a junior minister to Sir Greville MacDonald, the Secretary of State for the Environment. After going through Piers' desk, he discovers that all of the buildings that Piers has declared worthy of historic preservation are actually strip clubs and brothels owned by Sir Greville. Alan blackmails Sir Greville him into cutting him in on the scheme. Having angered Sarah, Piers, and Greville simultaneously, Alan steps out of the Ministry of the Environment and is gunned down by an unseen assailant.
15	Special	"Who Shot Alan B'Stard?"	Geoffrey Sax	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	14 January 1990
The attack has come at a crucial time in the debate over capital punishment, and it looks like the bill will fail. But at the last second, Alan himself strides into the room and casts the crucial vote in favour. Alan gives Sir Greville a kickback to gain the contract to construct the new gallows. Seeking to expose Alan's fraud, Sarah allies herself with Kerry Grout, a talk show host who exposes Alan's charity fraud. Piers and Kerry sneak into the office to find further evidence. However, Piers accidentally shoots and kills Kerry with the rifle and then jumps out the window and into the Thames in panic. Alan is arrested by a policeman for Kerry's murder. At his trial, the policeman claims that Alan confessed to him. Alan is taken to the gallows to be hanged. As the trapdoor opens, however, he is saved because the subcontractor he used to build the gallows used balsa wood rather than mahogany, and the entire gallows collapses. This event is taken as an act of God, and Alan receives a full pardon from the Crown.

Series 3

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
16	1	"Labour of Love"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	6 January 1991
Alan is dismayed when Victor Crosby (James Saxon) becomes the new darling of the party. Alan plants a mousetrap in Crosby's desk drawer, then convinces him to send Thatcher a Valentine's Day card. Crosby's right hand is caught in the trap, and he ends up using his left hand to sign the card. Alan also gives him £1,000 cash to buy a Savile Row suit. At the next Prime Minister's Questions, Neil Kinnock reveals plans for the Government to abolish the poll tax. Sir Greville reveals that he has come into the possession of the note, and that an expert has identified it as Crosby's handwriting, despite his attempt to disguise it. When Crosby appeals to Alan to help him, Alan produces a doctored tape of Crosby on the phone with Kinnock accepting a £1,000 bribe for the documents. Crosby is arrested and expelled from Parliament.
17	2	"The Party's Over"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	13 January 1991
Professor Eugene Quail, the Government's oil expert, discovers that the North Sea oil, the foundation of all of the Tories' fiscal policies, will run out any day now, triggering a depression. Soon, the news is leaked to the media, and shares in oil companies hit an all-time low. But just as quickly, the crisis passes, as Professor Quail admits to the media that he had made a mistake. It is revealed that the whole thing was orchestrated by Alan: he blackmailed Quail into changing his predictions, shorted the oil companies' stock before the crash, then bought up all the shares at the new low price before the truth was revealed. Quail takes a £1 million payoff for his part in the scheme, and Alan is now secretly one of the richest men in England.
18	3	"Let Them Sniff Cake"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	20 January 1991
While appearing on a TV talk show, Alan voices his support for animal testing. Subsequently, Alan becomes the target of animal rights activists, whose methods quickly escalate from protests to death threats and a drive-by shooting of his office. Meanwhile, Alan is contacted by Lord Penistone (John Sessions) to score him a kilogram of cocaine. After taking the Lord's money, Alan sends Piers to make the buy. However, Piers gets robbed. Upon learning that his money is gone, Penistone has to be bought off with Alan's Rolls-Royce Corniche, which leads to his demise when he triggers a car bomb intended for Alan. Returning home, Alan learns that the bombers have been captured, but also discovers that Sarah was actually the one behind the threats and the drive-by shooting.
19	4	"Keeping Mum"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	27 January 1991
Alan passes an amendment to the Government's social security bill to cut off all Basic State Pensions to the elderly, a move that causes hundreds of retirement homes to close. His mother, a destitute and senile old homeless woman, arrives on his doorstep expecting him to care for her. Alan attempts to kill her, but she foils him and reveals that she is neither senile nor homeless, but is instead the wealthy owner of a retirement home, which is threatened by her son's amendment. She demands a payment of £250,000 or she will continue to live with him forever. Alan agrees to pay, but also prepares a terrible revenge: he arranges for Piers' mother, whose recent widowing has turned her into a pyromaniac, to become his mother's newest resident.
20	5	"Natural Selection"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	3 February 1991
Alan is deselected as the Tory candidate for Haltemprice. The new candidate is Ken Price, the owner of a construction company who, in the next few days, will be presenting his company's IPO. Alan manipulates Julian Whitaker, a junior minister, to create the impression that Whitaker has convinced the Chancellor of the Exchequer to abolish MIRAS, which would destroy the value of Price's business. Thinking that he has lost both his business and his fiancée simultaneously, Price commits suicide, hanging himself from a staircase.
21	6	"Profit of Boom"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	10 February 1991
Alan is visiting the Soviet Union when he is contacted by Colonel Gromyko, head of the KGB, and Freddy Ogilvy, director of MI6. The two wish to reignite the Cold War in order to have their budgets restored. He agrees, in exchange for a payment of £100 million, to assassinate Gorbachev. Alan coerces Piers into getting him an invitation to meet with Gorbachev, and arrives bearing a commemorative plaque for Gorbachev containing a time bomb. Alan convinces Piers to present the plaque, but Piers forgets present the plaque. Alan and Piers escape the tomb, but the bomb destroys the bearer bonds that comprised Alan's fee. Alan and Piers are convicted and sentenced to 100 years' hard labour in Siberia.

Series 4

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
22	1	"Back from the Mort"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	22 November 1992
Alan secures his release from the gulag and returns to England. He soon discovers that he has been replaced as MP for Haltemprice; Sarah is now engaged to Count Otto Von Munchweiller, a Danish nobleman and MEP for East Germany; and Sir Greville lost his seat in Parliament. He suggests that Sir Greville force Piers out of his seat by getting him named to the House of Lords and then win the seat for himself in a by-election. Alan arranges to have a Bolivian death squad decapitate Otto in bed while Sarah sleeps beside him. Upon discovering this, she goes into shock, which allows Alan to sneak into her hospital room and force her to sign over all her assets to him.
23	2	"H*A*S*H"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	29 November 1992
Sir Greville, acting in the employ of Big Tobacco, wishes for Alan to manipulate Piers into getting the European Commission to legalise cannabis, which the companies will then make a fortune on. Alan agrees in exchange for a payment of £5 million per year. Meanwhile, Alan discovers that Sarah is now working as a high-priced call girl. Alan arranges for her to seduce the entire membership of the Commission and persuade them to back legalisation, but he is then abducted by members of the Mafia, who threaten to kill him if he doesn't torpedo the legalisation vote. Alan unveils photos of Sarah in flagrante delicto with each and every member of the Commission. The Commission votes unanimously against legalisation.
24	3	"Speaking in Tongues"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	6 December 1992
Alan is approached by to sign off on the route for the new autobahn. He insists that it should be built straight through a tract of unspoiled forest. Alan persuades Piers to sign off on the new autobahn route, a decision that was delayed for a week by the translator strike. Convinced that his decision will save the EEC millions of pounds, Piers authorises construction to begin through the tract of forest, only to discover that Alan has already purchased it all under a false name, and now intends to charge through the nose for it.
25	4	"Heil and Farewell"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	13 December 1992
Alan sneaks Nicolae Ceaușescu, Jr. into Germany but finds his scheme imperiled when hundreds of neo-Nazis begin lay siege to the hostel. Back at his office, Alan buys the cryonically-preserved penis of Hitler. Returning to the neo-Nazis' hideaway, Alan reveals the penis, which is identified as genuine by Colonel Wessell, a former member of Hitler's personal guard. Having won the group's trust, Alan orders that they attack a hotel where the Israeli Defense Minister is staying. Alan heads for the Swiss bank where the treasure is kept. Once there, he discovers that the Nazi treasure and the Romanian treasure are one and the same. As Wessell and Ceauşescu fight, Alan seals them inside the vault, setting the time lock for 31 December 1999.
26	5	"A Bigger Splash"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	20 December 1992
After purchasing Robert Maxwell's luxury yacht, Alan announces that he will use the yacht to transport humanitarian aid to Herzegovina. However, Maxwell is really alive and hiding out in Bosnia. Once in Herzegovina, Alan offers the leaders of the two factions each a £1 million bribe to agree to a one-hour-long ceasefire. Once the ceasefire is in effect, Alan decides to leave Maxwell behind and instead makes off with the crate containing his stolen millions, but when he gets underway he learns that Maxwell, not the money, is inside the crate, and there never was any loot to be had.
27	6	"The Irresistible Rise of Alan B'Stard"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	26 December 1992
A special party conference is called to vote on Conservative support for Britain's continued membership in the EEC, and a fiery speech from Alan leads to a decisive vote to leave. This precipitates a political crisis. A snap election is called, and the New Patriotic Party, led by Alan, wins a majority in Parliament. However, Paddy O'Rourke, Labour's alcoholic leader, is now Prime Minister. Unfazed, Alan proclaims himself Lord Protector, has Paddy arrested, and declares that Britain is now his "plaything".
28	Special	"A B'Stard Exposed"	Graeme Harper	Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran	30 December 1994
Alan B'Stard MP has returned to domestic Parliament following a Welsh by-election conspicuous by the absence of any opponents. They were found after polling day at the bottom of a coal mine. B'Stard is grilled by veteran broadcaster Brian Walden and reveals his vision for 21st century Britain – including a proposal to construct a Berlin Wall-inspired, thirty-feet high, electrified border control system named, 'B'Stard's Fence'. During the interview, Alan is also tricked into revealing his plans to create his own political party and later pays for Walden's silence. It effectively ignores the last episode.

Stage show

Episode 2006: The Blair B'Stard Project – Alan B'Stard has created New Labour after making billions on Black Wednesday, installing a failed singer as prime minister and secretly running the country from his bunker at number 9 Downing Street. The show sees Alan attempting to settle a divorce from his wife while playing Al-Qaeda and the Americans off each other in the hunt for weapons of mass destruction (which are being carefully hidden by Alan). Aided by his PPS Frank, the last socialist in the Labour Party and Flora, an ex-Young Conservative turned Blairite lackey, Alan arranges the fake kidnapping of Tony Blair and the ruining of Gordon Brown in order to place himself in ultimate power. The show ends with Alan being named Lord Protector with the declaration, "And Alan takes EVERYTHING".

ALAN B'STARD'S EXTREMELY SECRET WEAPON – The stage show returns, heavily re-written in late 2006, touring into 2007. Alan is plotting to become one of a shadowy elite of politicians who control the world's oil supplies.

NOtoAV

In 2011, the character of Alan B'Stard, again portrayed by Rik Mayall, was used in the campaign against introducing the AV system to UK Parliamentary elections, in an official television broadcast by NOtoAV. B'Stard appears as a party leader in the near future who, at a pre-general election conference, makes ridiculous promises to the public including the abolition of all taxes and free electricity. When his aides query how they will afford such policies, B'Stard gleefully explains that he won't have to, as when he gets elected, he can go into coalition and blame all the government's failings on his partners. He adds that under AV, even if people don't vote for him he'll probably be elected anyway. The advert ends with B'Stard entering Number 10 as prime minister, accompanied by another party leader.[1]

References

1. Alan B'stard: backroom deals and not delivering on promises, NOtoAV, April 8, 2011

External links

• List of The New Statesman episodes at IMDb