The New Statesman
The adventures of Conservative MP Alan B'Stard, a man who who has absolutely no morals. He stops at nothing to make himself richer and more powerful in the party and is involved in drugs, adult films, fraud (making up charities with the initials C.A.S.H when writing on cheques), and even murder, but believes that he will never be caught as he is a Conservative MP and therefore all-powerful. He has almost complete power over another MP: Piers Fletcher-Dervish, who is nearly completely brainless. His wife Sarah B'Stard has very loose morals (both of them have affairs nearly every day) and has hated her husband from five minutes after they got married and uses him to get anything she wants. Each episode contains recent news items, and Alan moves with the times with things like the end of the Cold War, the Nazi hunt in the late 1980s, as well as the Animal Freedom Party. Keeping up with the huge amount of cash, in the fourth season Alan moves to the European Union to continue to make herself richer and to climb to the most powerful position he can reach.
- 1987-1994
- 4 seasons
- Comedy
- TV-14
The adventures of Conservative MP Alan B'Stard, a man who who has absolutely no morals. He stops at nothing to make himself richer and more powerful in the party and is involved in drugs, adult films, fraud (making up charities with the initials C.A.S.H when writing on cheques), and even murder, but believes that he will never be caught as he is a Conservative MP and therefore all-powerful. He has almost complete power over another MP: Piers Fletcher-Dervish, who is nearly completely brainless. His wife Sarah B'Stard has very loose morals (both of them have affairs nearly every day) and has hated her husband from five minutes after they got married and uses him to get anything she wants. Each episode contains recent news items, and Alan moves with the times with things like the end of the Cold War, the Nazi hunt in the late 1980s, as well as the Animal Freedom Party. Keeping up with the huge amount of cash, in the fourth season Alan moves to the European Union to continue to make herself richer and to climb to the most powerful position he can reach.
Season 1 Episode Guide
8 Episodes 1987 - 1988
Episode 1
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
26 mins
Ruthless, corrupt Alan B'stard has himself elected as the Conservative MP for the Yorkshire town of Haltemprice, having sabotaged the brakes of his opponents and landing them in hospital. However, Chief Constable Jellicoe discovers the fact and blackmails B'stard into passing a bill which will allow the police to carry guns. Having accomplished this, Jellicoe, a religious fanatic who talks to Jesus, attempts to blackmail B'stard further but is undone when B'stard persuades him that the bishop of Haltemprice is the Anti-Christ and Jellicoe is arrested and dismissed for attacking him, leaving B'stard free to privately sell guns to the constabulary.
Episode 2
Passport to Freedom
24 mins
B'stard's wife Sarah inherits a quarter of a million pounds' worth of shares in Ocelot Motors, which will allow her to file for divorce though B'stard wants her to stay with him as her father is an influential Tory bigwig. So he forges a letter from the Prime Minister to the head of Ocelot Motors, urging him to cut the workers' wages and leaks this to Labour MP Bob Crippen, who calls the workers out on strike. As a result, the shares lose their value overnight and Sarah is forced to stay with her husband.
Episode 3
Sex Is Wrong
24 mins
B'stard declines to join dim colleague Piers in becoming part of elderly Sir Stephen Baxter's anti-pornography crusade, the Campaign for Moral Regeneration. Then he meets Lady Virginia Imrie, another crusader, who has written a book entitled "Sex is Wrong". B'stard has dozens of copies of it printed, including explicit photos which he stole from the Campaign's pamphlet, and it is a sell-out at the Conservative party Conference, making a tidy sum for B'stard, who claims it is an illustration of the evils of the flesh which must be resisted. After the conference, he also manages to pull Lady Virginia.
Episode 4
Waste Not Want Not
25 mins
Prior to the Falklands War B'stard was paid - by the Argentinians - to dispose of a quantity of nuclear waste but has so far done nothing about it so he persuades his disgraced (transsexual) accountant Norman Borman to help him. He plans to use a former coal-mine owned by his father-in-law Sir Roland Gidleigh-Park but Sir Roland refuses. Eventually B'stard discovers why. The mine contains a load of mustard gas which the government had planned to use in the General Strike of 1926 and which has been there ever since. Sir Roland does offer B'stard an alternative dumping ground - though at a price.
Episode 5
Friends of St. James
24 mins
At a school reunion B'stard meets former classmate Lance Okum-Martin, who tells him that he is now the president of Caribbean island St. James and who suggests a scam, whereby they will open an off-shore account on the island offering staggeringly high rates of interest to the depositors. Then, when a large enough sum has been raised the bank will conveniently go bust and they will pocket the proceeds. B'stard arranges a 'fact-finding' mission to St James but, just before the plane lands, he realizes that Lance is not the president but his grandson and he was planning to defraud B'stard. In the event he cuts his losses by stealing the cheques he was given to deposit and giving half the money to the pilot to say nothing.
Episode 6
Three Line Whipping
25 mins
Having spent the night in a brothel B'stard is late for a breakfast television debate and makes a fool of himself. He is followed into the studio by the cabbie, whom, in his hurry he omitted to pay and believes he has killed the man after he falls and hits his head. Driving the taxi to dispose of the 'body' he picks up Margaret Thatcher as a passenger and, in his guise as an ordinary man, praises B'stard, which increases his popularity with the prime minister. When the taxi driver comes to B'stard gets out of his predicament by persuading the police that the man kidnapped him.
Episode 7
Baa Baa Black Sheep
25 mins
Because of his immoral antics, B'stard faces de-selection by the party but sees a chance of redemption when he learns that American fast-food magnate Willoughby Guzzler plans to open a food factory in either Wales or Haltemprice. To eliminate the Welsh competition he gets Norman, whose sex change to Norma is almost complete, to seduce Welsh secretary Goronwy Hopkins so he can be compromised and blackmailed, but he drops dead on finding that Norma is still a man. Willoughby invites B'stard and his wife to dinner, but when Sarah refuses, B'stard escorts Norman instead, and when Guzzler suggests a wife-swapping party, he declines, for obvious reasons. However, devout Christian Guzzler sees this as a sign of B'stard's moral rectitude and agrees to open the factory in Haltemprice, bringing new jobs and forcing the party to keep B'stard.
Episode 8
Alan B'Stard Closes Down the BBC
In a special edition recorded for the Comic Relief charity telethon, B'stard bullies Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's secretary into granting him an audience with the Iron Lady. When he meets her, he confirms her view that the BBC television stations are run by hard Left extremists intent on ruining the country and persuades her to have the BBC closed down. He then makes a call to Michael Grade, head of the rival Channel 4 TV station, who has promised him his own show if he can get rid of the opposition, to tell him his mission is accomplished.