| The Images Which Left The Royals Spitting Mad |
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| Written by Joanne Leyland | |||||||
| Wednesday, 29 March 2006 | |||||||
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Page 5 of 5 Meanwhile, the age of spin had robbed the essential comedic ingredients of character and personality from government and most realms of public life. By this point, however, the damage was done. Spitting Image had truly pushed back the boundaries of decency; boundaries which cannot be returned to the more innocent levels of yesteryear. Today, as Prince Philip was furious to discover on witnessing TV comedienne Catherine Tate's skit at the November 2005 Royal Variety Performance, it is deemed perfectly fine to mock the Queen, even when the monarch herself is sat just feet away.  In 2000, series creator Roger Law auctioned off a collection of original Spitting Image puppets at Sothebys in London. A number of the puppets, including those of Charles, William and Camilla Parker Bowles, later appeared on eBay and today likely languish unseen by the masses in private homes throughout the world.Whilst Roger Law was able to build a new life in Australia, away from the TV revolution he himself perpetrated, the Royal Family continues to suffer the fallout. Never again will they be held in the kind of esteem which saw the Archbishop of Canterbury worrying about the shocking concept of men in pubs listening to a Coronation ceremony whilst still wearing their hats. Today, it is common place for the royals to be subjected to the most extreme kinds of mockery, be it on television, in newspapers and magazines or, most especially, in the virtual world of cyberspace. The puppets on display at the Museum of London's new exhibition may have lost some of their colour. They may also have lost their shock value. But they've lost nothing in comparison to that which has been lost by the House of Windsor. 
Worryingly for the future King Charles V and royal generations to come, in many instances it is one commodity which can prove to be irretrievable, even to the richest and most powerful members of society. Satirical London: 300 Years of Irreverent Images is on at the Museum of London between 1st April and 3rd September 2006. Entry is free to all.
See the Museum of London website for further details. Comment on this article
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