Press

Yorkshire Post Today
03 February 2007
Source

TV unveils Carry On Prescott comedy

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott faces fresh humiliation in a new TV drama which portrays him as a Carry On-style lecher.

ITV1’s Confessions Of A Diary Secretary is a comic take on Prescott’s affair with Tracey Temple.

He is shown having sex with Temple in his flat, his office and his official country pile Dorneywood – all without removing his socks.

Prescott – played by Early Doors actor John Henshaw – woos Temple by approaching her at a Whitehall Christmas party with the line: “I bet those nipples are fantastic when they’re erect.” And when he spies her making a bacon sandwich, he asks her: “Are you all right with bacon or would you like a sausage?”

Prescott invites her back to his Admiralty House grace-and-favour apartment because he has some diary entries he wants to “slot in”.

“You said you had something you wanted me to slot in? Is it a big thing or a little thing?” Temple asks.

“Well, why don’t you take a look for yourself? I’m sure you’d be able to accommodate it,” a leering Prescott replies before consummating the affair.

At one point, Temple (Shameless star Maxine Peake) tells him to pep up their sex life with Viagra.

“You expect me to score Viagra at this time of night? Who do you suggest I ring?” he asks. “Blunkett?” suggests Temple.

The drama, to be aired on February 28, is based on Temple’s diaries and an interview she gave to a Sunday newspaper.

It shows Prescott lying to loyal wife Pauline, who is hundreds of miles away at their home in Hull.

The affair ended when Temple’s boyfriend discovered her diaries and went to a newspaper.

Throughout the drama, she is portrayed as a woman with delusions of grandeur.

When Tony Blair leaves the country, leaving Prescott in charge, she muses: “I suppose that means I’m having sexual relations with the Prime Minister. I’m like the British Monica Lewinsky. Only thinner.”

Prescott is not the only politician sent up. One scene features Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown, played by Tony Slattery and Damian Lewis.

Prescott invites them round to his flat for a shepherd’s pie dinner, with Temple acting as waitress.

But Blair and Prescott end up having a bitter argument over whether or not ketchup can be called ‘red sauce’.

Henshaw, 55, said he relished the role of Prescott.

“He’s a larger-than-life character. I’ve got a bit of feeling for Prescott. He says what he means, when he’s annoyed you can see he’s annoyed,” he said.

But of Prescott’s affair, he said: “As a married man myself for 30-odd years, I think it’s the lowest of the low that any man can do to his wife. It was an awful thing, it was callous. I felt sorry for Pauline.”

The actor got in shape for the role by eating a lot.