‘I quit one of TVs biggest shows in a huff after | UK News
John Lloyd admits he begged for a job on Spitting Image which grew to become a huge hit (Image: Andy Hollingworth)
The Nineteen Eighties was a seminal time for TV comedy in the UK. The traditional cosy sitcom was changed in affections with more topical and various fare such asMNot The Nine O’Clock News, Blackadder and the satirical puppet political comedy Spitting Image. The factor that hyperlinks all these shows is famous producer John Lloyd, who is still making tv magic with QI for the last 23 years. In an exclusive chat with Express.co.uk the now 74-year-old legendary TV figurehead opened up about his profession and mirrored on how he received the job on ITV‘s Spitting Image after offering “to work for nothing”.
“I think that if you’re going to go to work at all, you might as well shoot for the stars and I certainly did with that,” he said. “When I heard they received some money to make it I used to be around there like a rat up a pipe to [show co-creator] Roger Law saying: ‘You have to hire me!’
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“I told him I was probably the only producer in the world capable of doing it because I’d done Not The Nine O’Clock news. I understood topical comedy. I didn’t know about puppets. But I knew topical comedy is a area of interest factor. There’s not many of us who do it.
“I basically went on bended knees to say please hire me. I’ll work for nothing. That’s what I said because I thought it was going to be massive and of course it was. My goodness it was getting 15 million viewers on a Sunday night,” he recalls. But every great high is usually followed by a great low and this was no exception.
He explained, “After I quit Spitting Image, in a bit of a huff to be perfectly honest, I had to get used to the fact that I wasn’t in the newspapers. That was an extraordinary thing. Spitting Image was in the papers every day and you get the sense of making a difference.”
Proudly highlighting the show’s legacy, he says: “What that show particularly did was any 15-year-old in the country as a result of it could have named 10 members of the cabinet and four members of the shadow cabinet. It educated a whole bunch of kids into politics and showed it could be interesting so that was very exciting.”

John Lloyd produced Spitting Image which had 15 million viewers at its peak (Image: PA)
“Obviously I [actually] began to think I was doing something wrong [when I was working on it]. If you’re getting those sorts of numbers [there must be something up] because usually most good things everybody doesn’t like. So to have everybody on side seemed very strange,” he laughed.
Undoubtedly, his latest endeavour could have more than a few people on facet. He is set to take to the stage with his great good friend of 50 years, Monty Python star Michael Palin, for a live, unedited show titled On a Roll – Lightly Toasted at London’s Gillian Lynne Theatre on April 27.
“The idea is it’s 75 minutes, no interval, so people can go out and have a pizza afterwards – just have a really fun evening,” he says of the show, which he hopes will turn into a totally fledged sequence of related talks.
“Obviously Mike is a national treasure, you know, he’s a terribly nice guy. He’s also terribly funny. He’s very bright. He’s been all around the world. Who wouldn’t want to go and listen to him talking about his life with somebody who gets on with him extremely well?” he asks rhetorically.
Michael Palin On A Roll – Lightly Toasted by John Lloyd is on at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, Drury Lane on April 27. Tickets can be found from https://lwtheatres.co.uk/whats-on/michael-palin/
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