Radio 4
1998 (six episodes)

Owing an obvious debt to The Benn Tapes, a Radio 4 series based on the audio diaries kept by Tony Benn, this quarter-hour satire show chronicled British political life as heard by the dictaphone of Earnest Maclean (Leslie Phillips), former Conservative MP and shadow minister without portfolio.  Maclean’s sozzled ramblings were interspersed with both real archive recordings of politicians and staged conversations featuring several impressionists (including Steve Nallon and Enn Reitel).  The series was largely the work of long-standing satire writer John Langdon, with additional material by script editor Tom Jamieson and producer Bruce Hyman.