Virtually everything Rik Mayall stars in is funny and this great series is no exception. Depicting a money-grabbing, corrupt and debauched MP in Thatcher's Britain, it sees Mayall at his peak. The scheming and wordplay are brilliant, whilst the stories rush along at a swift pace with plenty of laughs. I like the fact that the series pokes fun not just at the Tories (the typical cries from the left that they're all toffs and buffoons etc), it also attacks Labour (opportunistic, double-dealing and stupid) whilst savaging the Liberals now and then as well!!! Now that's the kind of approach I like to see! Alan B'Stard is of course one of comedy's great characters. In just 4 series and a special, he managed to hide nuclear waste near a school, get assassinated and survive, be sentenced to death and escape his hanging because the ropes (which he had sold them) didn't work, find himself trapped in a gulag, have numerous affairs, kill a few people, make loads of dodgy cash and get a telling off from the Iron Lady herself!!! Plus loads more! The New Statesman is a fantastic show, with outrageous humour and slapstick, twinned with a sinister undertone. Cynics will love it. Lets hope the new stage show, with B'Stard now one of Tony's Cronies in the discredited Labour party, is as good as the original.
Review of The New Statesman
