RaspberryLucozade This, in my opinion, is satirical comedy at its very finest. It was a vehicle created by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran to showcase the talents of Rik Mayall ( who had become a household name with viewers in the early '80's with 'The Young Ones' and 'The Comic Strip Presents' ) which came about after Mayall, who was impressed by their earlier hit 'Shine On Harvey Moon', had approached Marks and Gran to pen a show for him. The result was 'The New Statesman', made by Yorkshire Television in 1987.Here Rik played Alan Beresford B'Stard, a Tory MP for Haltemprice who has the largest majority of votes in The House Of Commons. B'Stard is a corrupt, sleazy, loathsome backbencher who only obtains his seat by default after plotting a fatal car crash between the Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates. His wife is Sarah, a devious bisexual who despises Alan but stays married to him for his money. Alan too only remains married to Sarah because her father, Roland Gidleigh Park ( played by the late Charles Gray ), controls the local Conservative party. In parliament, Alan shares an office with Piers Fletcher Dervish, a well meaning but extremely dim-witted MP who often finds himself involved in Alan's schemes and scams.In the first episode, Alan cleared a law which allowed the police to carry firearms, however the guns he supplied for them were defective an in another he engineered the liquidation of a company in which his wife has shares in. In a sketch created for 'Comic Relief' in 1988, we even saw Alan attempt to shut down the BBC.As the evil B'Stard, the late Rik Mayall was outstanding to say the least. He certainly was not recognisable as the goofy Rick from 'The Young Ones'. Marks and Gran's scripts cleverly combined visual slapstick comedy with satire. One of the most memorable recurring jokes in the series is Alan's inability to make sex last any longer than half a minute ( which he believes is a sign of virility ). Also excellent in the cast were the stunningly beautiful Marsha Fitzalan as Sarah and Michael Troughton as the dippy Piers. Rowena Cooper appeared in the first series as Alan's financial adviser Norman Borman, who is undergoing a sex change in order to elude a prison sentence.After series three, Alan deported from Westminster to Brussels to become an M.E.P and in the final episode, 'The Irressistible Rise Of Alan B'Stard', he became Prime Minister of Great Britain. It seemed by this point that the show had run out of ideas. In 1994, a special episode entitled 'A. B'Stard Exposed' was made for BBC Television in which Alan was interviewed by Brian Walden to reveal his vision of 21st Century Britain. This was indeed the last viewers saw of B'Stard.Like 'Spitting Image' and the later 'Drop The Dead Donkey', many of the topical references used in 'The New Statesman' have resulted in it looking dated. Nonetheless, it is one of the greatest sitcoms to emerge from the 1980's and proved that Mayall was capable of so much more than farting and hitting people with frying pans.

Ian Connolly I own the complete New Statesman box set and think it is absolutely brilliant. Alan B'Stard is riotous and his ability to find a profit in any venture is often hilarious. I do have one question though, and wonder could anyone answer it.While browsing this excellent site I saw the complete list of episodes for the New Statesman. The episode "Alan B'Stard closes down the BBC" is not on my "complete New Statesman" box set. Was this not an official episode? Why is it not included? I unfortunately was too young to appreciate this show when it first aired so have no idea if it was just a charity special or anything like that. I have always assumed that the episode "Who shot Alan B'Stard" was a one-off, though without giving too much away there is no way they couldn't include that episode on the boxset without raising too many questions.So, overall the show is brilliant, and if anyone can tell me what happened to this lost episode I'd appreciate it. Thanks for reading this.PS I didn't really know where else to put this question, so put it in here with my praise.

fibreoptic I watched this when i was a kid, i didn't really like politics but i liked this and Spitting Image. One of the reasons i think i watched this was because it was on on a sunday night and my mum let me stay up to watch it. I found it hilarious though and still do. I recently watched Series 1 and it dawned upon me that Alan B'Stard is infact a more evil version of Blackadder which is probably why i liked The New Statesman so much. I get more of the political jokes now but they are out of date and redundant but there's more to it than that. Will never be considered a classic due to it being about British politics but was one of the few great comedy sitcoms that appeared on ITV because most of the greats appeared on the BBC. I'd like to see it repeated so i hope some ITV or Sky executive reads this and sorts it out.

varsania Been a fan of Riks for years. But this tops the lot. The character Alan Beresford B'stard and Rik Mayall go hand in hand. They were meant for each other. Such a refreshingly original comedy series, with so much scope for political satire, plots, characters, you name it. An excellent supporting cast with characters Piers, Sarah, Sir Stephen Baxter, Sir Greville, Geof Diquead and many more.Each series has its own uniqueness. The first series entrenched with 80s Thatcherism, we all remember those days. The nineties comes in with the faceless John Major, and Europe with all trimmings. Alan B'stard as MEP for Obersaxon in Germany is quite brilliant. This is especially good as it gives him the chance to lay into Europe and take the mickey out of our European neighbours, especially the Germans, or the krauts as he would say.I suggest anybody who loves British comedy and political satire at its very best should watch it. It just a pity it has ceased production. Would have loved to see Alan tackle Labour and Tony Blair, knowing him he probably would have defected!