A right royal farce

As Spitting Image returns, producer John Lloyd recalls how the show was nearly banned

- John Lloyd

Spitting Image debuted on Central Television in 1984. The title wasn’t mine: I wanted to call it Rubber News. But it transpired there’s a magazine for people who like that kind of thing, and we felt it would be wrong to raise their hopes.

At its peak, Spitting Image was number three in the ratings and getting 15 million viewers a week – 1½ million more people than it had taken to re-elect Margaret Thatcher to power in 1983. It ran for 13 years, and right from the start it ran into trouble.

Dear Sir, You are making a complete fool of yourself with your hideous caricature of our much loved and respected Royal Family they are very special to a lot of people but not to nig nogs like you. I am very surprised you are even be allowed to show your rubbish on TV for which we are paying £46 licence a year for any way the next time you make [a puppet] make it of yourself or your mother.

Disgusted viewer

Sorry, I don’t watch [the programme] but we get the [Sunday] People.

This letter arrived after the second programme – there weren’t any royal puppets in the first one: the day before transmission, the channel controller had summoned us to his office and told us to take them all out. We were outraged and very nearly quit on the spot. But it turned out it wasn’t censorship. Prince Philip was to open their new Nottingham studios that week and they didn’t want to upset him. They let us put all the royal puppets back in for the second edition.