Lord Bonkers' Diary: How I anticipated The King's Speech by 50 years

Lord Bonkers offers us his further recollections of the early days of commercial television.

Not every moving television programme meets with the success it deserves. In the early days of the Rutland ITV franchise we screened an hilarious comedy series ("On the Throne") based upon the Abdication crisis.

Sid James made a fine George V, with lovely Peggy Mount playing Queen Mary; there were also roles for such sterling actors as Julian Orchard and Hugh Lloyd. The outstanding figure, however, was a newcomer by the name of Ronnie Barker, who captured the stutter of the Duke of York (who became George VI in the course of the series) down to a T.

Yet it proved impossible to commission a second series when the Queen Mother let it be known that she did not care for the programme one bit. Yet I remember thinking at the time that Pat Coombs� portrayal of her was distinctly charitable.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• The Great Rutland Inflation of 1752
• Richard Grayson says "Shut that door!"
• Defeating the Black and White Minstrels

John Freeman is 96 today

John Freeman, the last surviving member of the House of Commons elected at the 1945 general election, celebrated his 96th birthday today.

Ephraim Hardcastle in the Daily Mail provides a summary of his remarkable career:

He was elected to Parliament as a Labour MP in 1945 after wartime service as a Rifle Brigade major.

Edited the New Statesman when it was an influential political magazine.

Conducted the BBC�s famous, 1959 �Face to Face� TV interviews, now available on DVD.

Became British High Commissioner to India and later HM�s ambassador to Washington.

Then in 1971 chairman of London Weekend TV until his retirement in 1984. After which he spent five years as Visiting Professor on International Relations at the University of California, Davis.

By coincidence, extracts from his Face to Face interview with Tony Hancock were shown in BBC Two's biography of the comedian this evening. I cannot find it on the BBC site yet, but there is a radio programme all about those interviews.