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Classics of the British entertainment empire
The rubber dolls from Spitting Image. The satirical show "Spitting Image" once used these caricatures to make fun of celebrities and skewer British politics. The show's archive is maintained at Cambridge University Library. A new exhibition now shows dolls, sketches and other documents. The show ran from 1984 to 1996, later there was a new edition.
Photo: Justin Tallis / AFP
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Creator of 3D caricatures
"Spitting Image" producer John Lloyd stands next to a doll of former British Princess Diana. He remembers that at that time he received two bags full of viewer mail every week, with compliments or criticism. At that time, you still had to make an effort for a letter of complaint – envelope, stamp and then going to the mailbox.
Photo: Joe Giddens / dpa
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TV scene from »Spitting Image«
In part, the show combined puppets and human actors, as here in a scene with Prince Edward doll and Sophie Rhys-Jones.
»Spitting Image« means something like »likeness«. The British TV classic became world famous in 1986 with the Genesis music video for »Land of Confusion«, which you can watch here. In it, the Ronald Reagan latex doll accidentally presses the nuclear button at the end: it is located on the president's bedside table right next to the call button for his nurse ("Nurse" and "Nuke").
Photo: UPPA / Photoshot / Avalon.red / IMAGO
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Genesis image
Caricatures and sketches are also shown in the exhibition, here, for example, together with a mask of the former president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev.
Photo: Joe Giddens / dpa
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Bogeyman
John Lloyd next to one of the most important puppets, that of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Photograph:
Justin Tallis / AFP
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Audience dialogue
The exhibition also shows examples of correspondence with spectators. In this example, the production counters the criticism that Margaret Thatcher is portrayed as ugly by pointing out that all her dolls are ugly. But it's also about the fact that the depiction could be sexist – the answer is not quite so simple.
Photo: Justin Tallis / AFP
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Not just politics
This exhibition photo shows the doll of the English footballer Paul Gascoigne. John Lloyd says that if the show were done today, "all of Instagram or Tiktok would be after me." He would find that "terrible".
Photo: Justin Tallis / AFP
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Starting point
The characters were always based on grossly exaggerated caricatures, such as here of Thatcher's successor John Major...
Photo: Justin Tallis / AFP
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... or the late Queen Elizabeth. The style of the show wasn't necessarily subtle.
Photo: Justin Tallis / AFP
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Current Face
A life-size mask of the current British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was also made for a stage show, but it is damaged.
Spitting Imgae has always had German offshoots, with similarly weird politician puppets.
Photo: Joe Giddens / dpa
mamk/dpa