A Very British Coup is a 1982 novel by British politician Chris Mullin. In 1988, the novel was adapted for television, directed by Mick Jackson, with a screenplay by Alan Plater and starring Ray McAnally. The television series, first screened on Channel 4, won Bafta and Emmy awards, and was syndicated to more than 30 countries.
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Harry Perkins, an unassuming, working class, very left-wing Leader of the Labour Party and Member of Parliament for Sheffield Central, is elected Prime Minister in March 1989. The priorities of the Perkins Government include dissolving all newspaper monopolies, removing all American military bases on UK soil, unilateral nuclear disarmament, and true open government. Newspaper magnate Sir George Fison, with allies within British political and civil service circles, moves immediately to discredit him, with the U.S. the key, but covert, conspirator. The most effective of the Prime Minister's domestic enemies is the aristocratic Sir Percy Browne, Head of MI5, whose ancestors "yea until the Middle Ages" have exercised subtle power behind the scenes. However Harry finds support in Joan Cook, a loyal Member of Parliament (MP) and Home Secretary; and Thompson, Perkins' Press Secretary; Inspector Page, his Head of Security and Monty Kowalski, his Military Advisor. It provides an intimate view of the machinations of a particularly British political conspiracy.
The book was written in 1981, at a time when Tony Benn looked likely to become leader of the Labour Party which at the time was strongly challenging the government of Margaret Thatcher in the opinion polls. It also has strong echoes of the persistent rumours that have circulated over the years about attempts by the British security services, and other wings of the British Establishment, to undermine and depose Harold Wilson's Labour government of the mid-1970s.[1] This first became widespread public knowledge around 1986 with the controversy around Spycatcher, after the publication of the novel but before the broadcast of the TV version. The story also has echoes of the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis in which there was alleged CIA involvement to remove a government proposing to close US military bases on Australian soil.
The endings of the novel and the television version are significantly different. In the novel the Prime Minister is ultimately forced from office following a catastrophic nuclear accident at an experimental nuclear plant that he had pushed for during his role as Secretary of State for Energy during a previous government (the most explicit parallel between Harry Perkins and Tony Benn in the novel).
In the TV version the Prime Minister is presented with forged evidence of financial irregularity following a long running affair, with the suggestion that he should resign rather than see the story made public. He agrees to make a resignation speech on live TV, but instead announces the attempted blackmail to the world along with a new election. Senior army officers watch in silence. The final sequence, on the morning of the election, is deliberately ambiguous, but implies that the military is about to stage a full-blown coup involving the assassination of Perkins.
The TV series will be released in the UK on DVD (region 2) in September 2011.
The TV version won four Bafta Awards - for Best Actor (Ray McAnally), Best Drama Series, Best Film Editor (Don Fairservice) and Best Film Sound - and one International Emmy Award for Best Drama.[2]
| Preceded by Tutti Frutti |
British Academy Television Awards Best Drama Series or Serial 1989 |
Succeeded by Mother Love |
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