Coming soon, Clark’s diaries on TV. Creeps and zombies beware
The diaries of Alan Clark, foremost controversialist of his generation, revisionist historian, philanderer and wit, are to be turned into a BBC TV drama series.
Auditions are being held this week, with John Hurt the frontrunner to play the quixotic Clark, who died in 1999. The series will be broadcast in the new year on BBC Four before transferring to BBC One or BBC Two later in the year.
Clark’s diaries were anathema to the politically correct. He displayed splendid contempt for just about everyone, and was unable to resist sending up some of his colleagues and the Tory Government’s most hallowed conventions. In a richly entertaining memoir of his time as a minister, the natural leader of the Toffs’ Tendency described various ministers as “charlatans”, “creeps” and “zombies”.
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The television drama will pitch the leading players of Conservative Government in the Eighties on to the small screen, including Michael Heseltine, whom Clark described as someone “who buys all his own furniture”.
The series will recreate the drama of Margaret Thatcher’s fall from power. Clark’s advice, recorded in his diaries, was memorable. “You must fight on, Prime Minister. Of course you are going to lose, but it will be magnificent.”
A spokeswoman for BBC Four said: “We can confirm we have commissioned a drama series on Alan Clark’s diaries. It will be broadcast in the first part of next year.”
The diarist is prone to exaggerate his own role in the great events of national life; his accounts are partial and he is blatantly unfair on his contemporaries by claiming history’s last word.
Perhaps that is why Alan Clark’s Diaries were such a success and why the TV series will be so keenly awaited. This will be one political drama which will not require “sexing up”.
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When Mandy tells all
NEW Labour’s addiction to spin knows no bounds. Peter Mandelson admits in his GQ column that even the gym is not safe. Despite showering his muscular personal trainer, Winston Squire, with gushy praise — “invariably enthusiastic ... demanding without being brutal ... cheers me up when I am feeling down” — Mandelson admits: “When I am under the cosh and being pushed to my physical limit, I might suddenly reveal a fascinating piece of low-level gossip to distract him, or show intense interest in his life and welfare.” At which Winston, no doubt, fairly ripples with pleasure.
HELPERS unpacking exhibits for Sir Peter Blake’s retrospective at the London Institute Gallery found one of the main items had been “scribbled all over”. Luckily, Blake, 71, managed to rescue the original Live Aid poster, autographed by the stars who performed, before any remedial action was taken. “It only took me a weekend to do, but I’m very proud of it,” he said.
It’s the pits ... we claim the Rite to stay cool
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THE heat has got to the musicians of the Kirov. Up until Tuesday night they were to be seen sweating in the pit at Covent Garden in regulation white ties.
But for the second night of The Rite of Spring they turned up in shirtsleeves, with the ladies in sleeveless black summer dresses. The poor dancers had to perform in wigs, heavy costumes, caked in make-up, sweating like oxen. The conductors fared no better. Mikhail Agrest wore a formal dinner jacket, waistcoat and black tie, while the more established Boris Gruzin, conducted in white tie and tails, with several mops of the brow between scenes.
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Are the organisers of September’s 29th American Film Festival, to be held at Deauville, exacting revenge for the storm of Francophobe sentiment in the US media during the Iraq war? They have appointed the Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski as chairman of the jury, meaning that the hacks and movie magnates will have to spend a week fawning over a fugitive from American justice.
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