Fictional scandal of the 1890’s

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32450, 10 November 1970, Page 4

Fictional scandal of the 1890’s

What was the truth behind the scandal? Where was the conspiracy planned? Why was the general shot? Who was in the blue bedroom on the night of the

great grappling ball? The 8.8. C. producer Ned Sherrin describes the programme that answers these questions as “a fictional documentary film investigating an imagined scandal at the tum of the century.” “My Father Knew Lloyd George,” is on CHTV3’s programme on Monday. The scandal in question has all the elements which could have started tongues wagging in the 1890’s—and those range from suggestions of impropriety between a prime minister’s wife and a junior member of his cabinet to suffragettes, and the trouble in Ireland. “The film has a complicated plot,” explains Ned Sherrin, “but it’s not necessary to its enjoyment that one should be able to follow it as a straight story line. It does tell a story, but it also makes the point that there are so many things in this sort of case which we can’t know about—that practically every history book which seeks to tell us the truth must be full of misrepresentations because so many facts have been suppressed.” “My Father Knew Lloyd George” is written by John

Bird, with additional material by the others taking part. All of them play the contemporary characters digging up the scandal, as well as the actual people involved in it. John Bird impersonates Queen Victoria, Eleanor Bron plays in a variety of parts and Alan Bennett is cast as Gladstone.