Rumours by Colin Shindler is an entertaining radio play about a defining 1960s’ political scandal. The play, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, is structured on the part played by the satirical magazine Private Eye in the Profumo Affair in 1963 and it catches perfectly the mood of the period.
We see the press awash with gossip and rumours, everyone looking over their shoulder to see which publication will stick its head above the parapet and print what everyone was saying but for which there was no solid evidence.
The intertwining of the worlds of the media, politics and the aristocracy can be seen in the names which stud the drama: Frosty (David Frost), Ned Sherrin, Jonathan Miller, Henry Brooke (the Home Secretary), the Duchess of Argyll, Lord Hailsham, Duncan Sandys. Add to the mix the key players: John Profumo, Christine Keeler, Mandy Rice-Davies, Yevgeny Ivanov and Stephen Ward and you have a heady mix for Colin Shindler’s fast-moving drama which presents not just the bones of the scandal but also focuses on friendship, loyalty, the nature of the media and the passing of an era.
In-fighting
A running theme through the play is the friction between the magazine’s editor Christopher Booker, and Eye journalists Willie Rushton and Richard Ingrams. One gag is that Booker is never there. He’s playing darts in the legendary Soho pub The Coach and Horses or he’s doing something at the BBC or having lunch at the Gay Hussar, a restaurant famous for its left-wing clientele.
Booker’s involvement in That Was The Week That Was is a cause of chagrin and resentment for Ingrams, who wants to be editor of Private Eye and seems to hanker after a telly spot as well. Rushton has a dig at his colleagues’ university education, pointing out he never went to ‘Oxford College’. However, all three were public school old boys of Shrewsbury School and their conversational references to house points and their Latin master reminds us the brave new world of satire has very old school foundations.
Old school ties
And you couldn’t get much more old school than the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, convincingly played by John Rowe. He emerges as a surprisingly sympathetic figure. You wouldn’t have dared to say that in 1963.
Even before his resignation, he was identified as yesterday’s man, too old and out of touch with the swinging Sixties. Born in 1894, and having served in World War 1, he was more Victorian than contemporary.
He acknowledges he is out of touch and does not ‘live widely among young people’ and wonders if he has to do The Twist to demonstrate his capability.
The relationship between him and his private secretary Timothy Bligh is touching, as we see Macmillan gradually realise the truth behind Profumo’s lie and feel his sense of hurt and betrayal as the old certainties of good manners, trust and a sound war record are no longer able to prevail.
Just at the end of the play we hear about Macmillan’s unwilling acceptance of his wife’s lifelong affair with Lord Boothby, which must have shaped his response to the rackety sexual environment which framed the events of 1963.
The sound of Secrets and Fools
Some nicely pointed songs punctuate the action. Lennon and McCarney’s Do You Want to Know a Secret highlights the strength of the rumour mill. Freddy and the Dreamers’ If You Gotta Make a Fool Of Somebody underscores the atmosphere of treachery, and From Russia With Love references the role played by the Russian naval attaché Ivanov.
The best bit of soundtrack, though, is the constant clattering of the typewriter. Private Eye owes its existence to its founders’ realisation that the offset litho printing process enabled them to produce the magazine cheaply. You typed the text, stuck it down and a printer took a photograph of it. Anyone could do it.
Chairman of the board
The Eye published sharp, no-holds-barred attacks on the government and on Macmillan in particular. The famous Lewis Morley picture of Christine Keeler posing naked on a chair was parodied with a drawing by Gerald Scarfe of Macmillan in the same pose, ‘confessing’ that his government was guilty of laxity and vile corruption.
In a pastiche by Christopher Booker of The Last Days Of The Roman Empire there is reference to Cristina, a beautiful girl of lowly origins who mixes with high society.
The end of Rumours sees Private Eye publishing a plethora of hard-hitting exposes of politicians by legendary journalist Claud Cockburn, including the revelation about Dorothy Macmillan’s affair.
Private Eye now the top seller
The play begins with a lawsuit as the Churchill family issue a writ against Private Eye for a cartoon depicting Randolph Churchill as a pig. Libel lawyers have continued to hound the magazine throughout the decades but it has continued to thrive and is now the UK’s top-selling news and current affairs title without losing its edge.
Hats off to Ian Hislop, Private Eye’s present editor, and to Colin Shindler for a lively insight into a significant episode in its colourful history.
My novel Living Doll covers the background of the Profumo Scandal and sets the scene of what the Swinging 60s were really like for young women at that time.
Reviewers say:
‘It is gripping because every word is authentic for the period and the author creates a believable heroine…’
‘Cleverly crafted, big, bold, plausible characters…’
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