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.