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Cultural depictions of prime ministers of the United Kingdom

Cultural depictions of prime ministers of the United Kingdom have become commonplace since the term's first use in 1905. However, they have been applied to prime ministers who were in office before the first use of the term. They are listed here chronologically from the date of first appointment as prime minister.

William Pitt the Younger

Lord Liverpool

George Canning

Duke of Wellington

Lord Melbourne

Melbourne has been portrayed in the following film and television productions:

Robert Peel

Lord Palmerston

Palmerston has been portrayed in the following film and television productions:

Lord Derby

Benjamin Disraeli

William Gladstone

Gladstone has been portrayed in the following film and television productions:

Lord Salisbury

Salisbury has been portrayed in the following film and television productions:

A. J. Balfour

Balfour was the subject of two parody novels based on Alice in Wonderland, Clara in Blunderland (1902) and Lost in Blunderland (1903), which appeared under the pseudonym Caroline Lewis; one of the co-authors was Harold Begbie.

He was portrayed on television in:

Henry Campbell-Bannerman

Campbell-Bannerman was portrayed by Geoffrey Bayldon in episodes 12 and 13 of TV series Edward the Seventh (1975).

H. H. Asquith

Asquith was portrayed in the following TV series:

David Lloyd George

Andrew Bonar Law

  • Bonar Law is briefly mentioned several times in Ken Follett's historical novel Fall of Giants (Book One of the Century Trilogy).
  • Bonar Law plays a supporting, if off-screen, role in Upstairs, Downstairs. He is even said to have recommended family patriarch, Richard Bellamy, to be offered a peerage.
  • His name is referenced by Julian and Sandy in Round the Horne, in a sketch called "Bona Law".
  • Rebecca West's novel Sunflower features a portrait of Bonar Law as the statesman Hurrell.
  • Arnold Bennett's novel Lord Raingo features Bonar Law as the chancellor of the exchequer Hasper Clews.
  • Lord Dunsany gently satirised the quiet way in which government decisions are made which affect many (but with little input from the many) in his short story The Pearly Beach. It begins "We couldn't remember, any of us at the Club, who it was that first invented the twopenny stamp on cheques. There were eight or nine of us there, and not one of us could put a name to him. Of course, a lot of us knew, but we'd all forgotten it. And that started us talking of the tricks memory plays..." The name they were groping for was that of Bonar Law.
  • In the 1981 TV series The Life and Times of David Lloyd George Bonar Law appears in two episodes and is played by Fulton Mackay.

Stanley Baldwin

Baldwin has been portrayed in the following film and television productions:

The character of ‘’Stanley’’ (referred to in his only book appearance as ‘’No. 2’’) from the British children’s book series ‘The Railway Series’’, a Baldwin Class 10-12-D locomotive, was named after Baldwin.

Ramsay MacDonald

  • The main villain of the 1907 novel Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson was partly based on MacDonald.
  • In Howard Spring's 1940 novel Fame is the Spur, later made into a 1947 film and a 1982 TV adaptation, the lead character Hamer Shawcross loosely resembles MacDonald; it is the story of a working-class Labour activist who grows into an establishment politician.
  • He is also mentioned and featured in Noël Coward's 1944 film This Happy Breed.
  • In the 1981 television series ', MacDonald appears as a significant character in the early episodes and is played by Robert James.
  • In the 1982 film Gandhi, he is portrayed by Terrence Hardiman.
  • In Graham Greene's 1934 novel It's a Battlefield, MacDonald's name repeatedly appears in newspapers and on billboards in reference to a visit to Lossiemouth.
  • In the twenty-fourth episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, original footage of MacDonald entering No. 10 Downing Street is followed by a black-and-white film of him (played by Michael Palin) doing a striptease, revealing garter belt, suspender and stockings.
  • In the 1983 television series Number 10, he was portrayed by Ian Richardson.
  • In Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, Old Brigadier Ernest Pudding during his initial interwar retirement "started in on a mammoth work entitled Things That Can Happen in European Politics. Begin, of course, with England. 'First,' he wrote, 'Bereshith, as it were: Ramsay MacDonald can die.' By the time he went through resulting party alignments and possible permutations of cabinet posts, Ramsay MacDonald had died."
  • In the 1998 television series Mosley, he was portrayed by Ralph Riach.
  • In the YouTube analog horror series War of the Worlds 1934, MacDonald gives a speech in the eleventh episode addressing the ongoing Martian invasion. He is voiced by the series' creator.

Neville Chamberlain

Chamberlain has been portrayed in the following films and television productions:

Winston Churchill

Clement Attlee

Literature

Clement Attlee composed this limerick about himself to demonstrate how he was often underestimated:

An alternative version also exists, which may reflect Attlee's use of English more closely:

Drama

Film

Anthony Eden

Literature

  • Eden appears as a character in James P. Hogan's science-fiction novel The Proteus Operation.
  • In Harry Turtledove's novel, The Big Switch, Eden appears as a member of a group of disgruntled MPs who are gathered together by Ronald Cartland after Britain allies with Germany in mid-1940.
  • In Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series of alternate history science-fiction novels, Eden first appears as the representative of the United Kingdom at the peace talks with the alien Race in Cairo. As it does not have nuclear weapons at that point in the story, the United Kingdom is not fully recognised by the Race, but is also too powerful for them to fully discount. Eden attempts to secure full recognition of the United Kingdom by the Race, but fails. Atvar, the Race's commander, notes that Eden is highly competent but attempting to negotiate from a position of weakness. In the succeeding series, Colonization, Eden is prime minister in 1962, leading a government which cultivates close relations with the German Reich. When Germany and the Race go to war, Eden refuses to lend British military assistance to the Reich, though formally supports German efforts against the Race.

Music

  • Eden is mentioned in a song by The Kinks, "She's Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina", from the album Arthur (1969).

Plays

  • Eden appears as a character in the play Never So Good (2008)—portrayed as a hysterical, pill-addicted wreck, spying on members of his own Cabinet by ordering government chauffeurs to report on their comings and goings. He is shown being overwhelmed by the chaos of the Suez Crisis and eventually forced out of office by his Conservative Party colleagues, at the urging of the American government.
  • Eden appears in Peter Morgan's stage play The Audience (2013); in the premiere, he was played by Michael Elwyn). In the 2015 West End revival version, featuring Kristin Scott Thomas as the Queen, Eden is portrayed by Scottish actor David Robb. His scene in the play is a prediction of Eden's audience with the Queen the day before the invasion of Anglo-French forces in Egypt. The conversation that takes place features Eden attempting to feed selected information to the Queen rather than the whole facts about the Suez crisis and the Queen's reaction to the proposed invasion. In the play's 2015 rewrite, the Queen makes reference to Tony Blair, seen in a flashback, and his proposal to send troops to Iraq, likening it to the conversation she'd had with Eden 50 years previously about Suez.

Television

  • As Secretary of State for War in 1940, Eden authorised the setting-up of the Local Defence Volunteers (soon renamed the Home Guard). In the film of the TV sitcom Dad's Army, the (fictional) Walmington-on-Sea platoon is formed in response to Eden's radio broadcast. Platoon second-in-command Sergeant Wilson is flattered when his resemblance to Eden is remarked upon.
  • Eden is portrayed by Jeremy Northam in the Netflix television series The Crown.
  • Eden is portrayed by Anthony Calf in the BBC television series Upstairs Downstairs (2010 edition).
  • The first season of the UK TV series The Hour revolves around the Suez Crisis and the effect of journalism and censorship on the public's perception of Eden and his government, as a metaphor for modern Western military involvement in the Middle East.
  • In the Ian Curteis television play Suez 1956 (1979), Michael Gough portrayed Eden.
  • In the 1978 television series Edward & Mrs Simpson he was portrayed by Hugh Fraser

Film

Harold Macmillan

  • Beyond the Fringe (1960–1966)
  • During his premiership in the early 1960s Macmillan was savagely satirised for his alleged decrepitude by the comedian Peter Cook in the stage revue Beyond the Fringe. 'Even when insulted to his face attending the show,' a biographer notes, 'Macmillan felt it was better to be mocked than ignored.' One of the sketches was revived by Cook for television. Cook would later claim that his impression of Macmillan 'was in fact extremely affectionate. I was a great Macmillan fan. He did have this somewhat ludicrous manner, but merely because it was the first time for some years that a living prime minister had been impersonated on the stage, a great deal of weight was attached to it.'
  • Suez 1956 (1979)
  • Richard Vernon stars as Macmillan, with Michael Gough as Eden, in a three-hour-and-ten-minute BBC television play by Ian Curteis.
  • Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981)
  • Macmillan appears as a supporting character, played by Ian Collier, in the miniseries produced by Southern Television for ITV.
  • A Letter of Resignation (1997–98)
  • Set in 1963 during the Profumo scandal, Hugh Whitemore's play A Letter of Resignation, first staged at the Comedy Theatre in October 1997, dramatises the occasion when Macmillan, staying with friends in Scotland, received a political bombshell, the letter of resignation from Profumo, his war minister. Edward Fox portrayed Macmillan with uncanny accuracy, but the play also explores the involvement of MI5 and the troubled relationship between Macmillan and his wife (played by Clare Higgins) who had made no secret of her adultery with the wayward Tory MP, Robert Boothby. The play was directed by Christopher Morahan.
  • Eden's Empire (2006)
  • Macmillan was played by Kevin Quarmby in Gemma Fairlie's production of James Graham's play Eden's Empire at the Finborough Theatre, London, in 2006.
  • Never So Good (2008)
  • Never So Good is a four-act play by Howard Brenton, a portrait of Macmillan against a backdrop of fading Empire, two world wars, the Suez crisis, adultery and Tory politics at the Ritz. Brenton paints the portrait of a brilliant, witty but complex man, tragically out of kilter with his times, an Old Etonian who eventually loses his way in a world of shifting values. The play premiered at the National Theatre in March 2008, directed by Howard Davies with Jeremy Irons as Macmillan.
  • The Crown (2016)
  • Macmillan is portrayed by Anton Lesser in the Netflix series The Crown.
  • Pennyworth (2019)
  • Macmillan is portrayed by Richard Clothier in the Epix series Pennyworth.
  • Nolly (2023)
  • Macmillan is portrayed by Nicholas Gecks in the ITVX miniseries Nolly, dramatising the life of Noele Gordon.

Alec Douglas-Home

  • The Night They Tried to Kidnap the Prime Minister (2009), played by Tim McInnerny – a BBC Radio 4 drama based on a real-life kidnapping attempt in 1964.
  • The Crown (2016), played by David Annen.

Harold Wilson

Television

  • The Lavender List (2006), played by Kenneth Cranham – a BBC Four fictionalised account by Francis Wheen of the Wilson Government of 1974–1976, with Gina McKee as Marcia Williams and Celia Imrie as Wilson's wife. The play concentrated on Wilson and Williams' relationship and her conflict with the Downing Street Press Secretary Joe Haines.
  • The Plot Against Harold Wilson (2006), played by James Bolam – aired on BBC Two on 16 March 2006. The drama detailed previously unseen evidence that rogue elements of MI5 and the British military plotted to take down the Labour Government, believing Wilson to be a Soviet spy.
  • Longford (2006), played by Robert Pugh – Channel 4 drama on the life of Lord Longford. In one scene, Wilson was seen dismissing Longford from his cabinet in 1968, in part because of the adverse publicity the latter was receiving for his public campaign supporting Myra Hindley, then incarcerated for her involvement in the Moors Murders.
  • In series 3 of The Crown, Harold Wilson is portrayed by Jason Watkins.
  • In Stonehouse, a dramatisation of the career of John Stonehouse, Wilson is portrayed by Kevin McNally.

Film

Other

Edward Heath

James Callaghan

  • The Audience (stage play, 2013, played in the premiere production by David Peart)

Margaret Thatcher

John Major

Tony Blair

Gordon Brown

David Cameron

Theresa May

Boris Johnson

References