No Job for a Lady Online

Who else but Penelope Keith could handle this series, depicting the life of a newly elected - by a tiny margin - Labour MP? It's sort of a "YES, PRIME MINISTER" for MPs instead of the Government and their officials, and though it may lack the wit and conflicts of that elegant series, it more than makes up for it in the acting department. All the actors in "YES, PRIME MINISTER" were excellent, and here the inimitable Penelope is joined by the marvelous and sleazily charming George Baker and the effervescent Paul Young. (Not to be confused with the singer, by the way.) I would love to see this excellent little series released on DVD - there are only 18 episodes in all, so one DVD set would do nicely, thank you...

Here's to hoping...

I don't know why the High Sheriff of Surrey Penelope Keith CBE OBE is not considered the reigning queen of British comedy. She has more British comedies to her credit than anybody else that I know. In this show, she plays a minister of parliament better known as MP Jean Price. She gets elected and must battle the other politicians and the men's world that was normally parliament. The show had a brief run on my local PBS station and I haven't seen it since then. It was a good classic comedy with smart writing and brilliant acting with serious topics that concerned the ordinary Britons that she represents. I would want Jean Price as my representative for Parliament or my congressional representative in the United States Congress. She is smart and clever and knows it. She is married and her children are grown. The show should be available on DVD to enjoy for us all over again.

I used to wonder how someone so basically humourless as Margaret Thatcher ( she once said "Every P.M. needs a Willie!" in tribute to her then-Home Secretary William Whitelaw, and could not understand why people were laughing ) managed to find 'Yes Minister' so amusing ( my guess is that Denis had to explain the point of the jokes to her as she watched ). What The Ironing Lady thought of 'No Job For A Lady' is not on record, but I strongly suspect she was in no great hurry to participate in a specially written sketch with the cast. It starred Penelope Keith who, at that time ( the late '80's/early '90's ), was one of I.T.V.'s biggest sitcom stars, having done one season of 'Moving', and three seasons of 'Executive Stress' with first Geoffrey Palmer and then Peter Bowles. Penny was always keen to show there was more to her than frightful right-wing snobs such as 'Margo Leadbeatter' and 'Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton'. As far back as 1983, she startled fans by starring in the B.B.C.'s 'Sweet Sixteen' which cast her as a career-minded woman monkeying around in bed with a bloke ( Christopher Villiers ) old enough to be her son. In 'No Job', she went further by playing - shock, horror - a Labour M.P.! They must have been handing out the smelling salts at the Finchley branch of the 'Margo Leadbeatter' Appreciation Society.

Written by Alex Shearer, 'No Job' was an attempt to portray members of Parliament in a more human light following 'Yes Minister' ( which had depicted them as bumbling fools at the mercy of cunning civil servants ) and 'The New Statesman' ( all about a greedy, grasping Tory ). Penny's character - 'Jean Price' - is a newly-elected socialist who has to juggle the responsibilities of looking after her constituents while looking after her family. The first episode saw her admonished for turning up on her first day in the Commons in a trouser suit. Her husband 'Geoff' ( Mark Kingston ) was generally supportive. Her arch enemy in the Commons was 'Godfrey Eagan', a smarmy, old school Tory ( George Baker ) who believed a woman's place was in the home. Jean shared an office with Scots M.P. 'Ken Miller' ( excellently played by Paul Young ). 'No Job' was made at a time when women M.P.'s were few and far between ( 42 to be exact ), hence Price is trapped in a man's world, a place where bureaucracy and blather cheerfully co-exist. The late Garfield Morgan was 'Norman', the whip. In the second episode of the first series, Jean made her maiden speech, and caused an uproar. We never got to hear or see it though ( due to budgetary constraints, a set for the main Commons chamber was not built ). Baker left after Season 2, and was replaced by Michael Cochrane as equally oily 'Richard Monckton' ( named after the U.S. President in the Watergate-inspired drama 'Washington: Behind Closed Doors' ). The show proved popular enough to run to three seasons, and has been repeated on I.T.V.-3 with Network now issuing it on D.V.D. While never really emerging from 'Yes Minister's shadow, it was all the same a worthwhile endeavour, and one of the last top-notch I.T.V. sitcoms before the selling-off of the regional franchises ( and guess whose brilliant idea that was? ) plunged the channel into the morass it remains stuck in today.

Keith, Shearer, and Davies re-teamed two years later for 'Law & Disorder'. Sadly, 2011 saw the deaths of both George Baker and Mark Kingston, as well as producer John Howard Davies.

Let's end this review on an upbeat note - less than a year after the first season, Thatcher was ignominiously sacked by her own party, and the whole country cheered. No job for that lady.

Jean Price is a female lawyer living in London in the 90s. This comedy revolves around her, her friends and enemies at work, and her husband. THe humour is sometimes good, and it's a pretty decent show altogether. Much of the humour and plots satirical, and challenging the views of the time. Many controversial subjects such as females as lawyers and selling indecent magazines at newsagents are brought up, as was the style of many shows about 1990. Jean Price finds that getting ones way in the government isn't as easy as it should be, even for one on the bench. She often tries to help those the law neglects such as refugees and poor people. Even drugs are tackled in an amusing episode where she goes 'undercover' only to find out the drug dealer was equally 'undercover'. A very amusing show. The credits are nicely made, very neat.