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mark occomore · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 9955 Location: UK

Actress Julie Walters is to star as TV standards campaigner Mary Whitehouse in a drama for her chief target, the BBC.

Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story will dramatise the campaigner's battle with BBC director general Sir Hugh Greene.

Their feud led to Mrs Whitehouse being banned from BBC premises from 1965 to 1976. Sir Hugh is reputed to have used her picture as a dartboard.

Harry Potter star Walters said she was "very excited" by the drama, which will be shown on BBC Two later this year.

Executive producer Leanne Klein said the film would be based on first-hand accounts of the "surprising and often very funny" story of Mrs Whitehouse's rise to fame.

'Doubt and dirt'

The public morals champion began her career with the Clean Up TV Campaign in 1964.

She complained vehemently of the increasing "blasphemy, bad language, violence and indecency" she saw on television, and became the first general secretary of the National Viewers and Listeners Association in 1965.

Her prime target was the BBC and its "propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt".

Sir Hugh Greene
Sir Hugh Greene was the BBC's director general from 1960-1969
Seen as a heroine of moral values by much of middle England, she was nonetheless derided in the media.

Sir Hugh Greene refused to meet her and ignored her campaign during his period as director general.

She once called him "the devil incarnate". He responded to her criticisms by commissioning a painting of her naked with five breasts to hang in his office.

"The clash of values between Mary and Hugh Carleton Greene is a battle of hearts and minds," said BBC drama commissioning editor Lucy Richer.

"This fantastic, revealing film brings to light the controversy that marked the launch of BBC Two, whose groundbreaking programmes so infuriated Mary Whitehouse."

Mrs Whitehouse died in 2001, aged 91.

BBC Online

gfloyd · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 7:21 pm Post subject:

What would she make of BBC3 which regularly uses the F word in its programme titles? Maybe the BBC is planning to call this programme

"F*** off, I'm Mary Whitehouse" Laughing

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His name was ernie ........ and he drove the fastest milk cart in the west.....

iknewdavidjacobsmum · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 336

I am appalled to read that. She should be a small footnote in broadcasting history. I remember she used to see "filth" in everything.
Denouncing 'Steptoe & Son', Mick Jagger living out of wedlock.
AND she wore awful glasses.

seymourwhitebits · Joined: 31 Mar 2007 Posts: 560 Location: Birmingham

Always thought it was hypocritical for her to say certain tv programmes were immoral and corrupting of the mind and yet she got to watch 'em all. Rolling Eyes

So either she was over-reacting or she was probably the most corrupted person in Britain Razz

Remember spitting image's skit of her watching the programmes and getting....erm...........excitable Shocked

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"Timpani!, Timpani!, They've all got it Timpani!"- All drummers know the pain of skin trouble.

Behind Geddon's Wall · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 8:29 pm Post subject:

She also tried to get Tom & Jerry banned Mad

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Geddon

You simply mustn't blame yourself -- the days were perfect
And so were exactly what I was born to spoil
For I am the Rider to the World's End
Bound across the cinder causeway
From the furnace to the quarry
Through the fields of oil

iknewdavidjacobsmum · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 336

BGW and Seymour: just made me think, what would she have made of "Janet and John", or wouldn't she have the imagination?
Eurovision song contest... Greek Entry?

seymourwhitebits · Joined: 31 Mar 2007 Posts: 560 Location: Birmingham

Well obviously being as pure as the driven snow she wouldnt have been able to complain without admitting her mind was as dirty as everyone elses.

Peter Sellers once said that in "The Goons" they used to use just the tag line of a joke such as "don't push me past my grannies" and the only complaints were from old ladies who shouldn't have known the joke in the first place.

Twisted Evil

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"Timpani!, Timpani!, They've all got it Timpani!"- All drummers know the pain of skin trouble.

Behind Geddon's Wall · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 7:45 am Post subject:

J&J would have been pilloried and Sir Terry held up as a despoiler of public morals.
_________________
Geddon

You simply mustn't blame yourself -- the days were perfect
And so were exactly what I was born to spoil
For I am the Rider to the World's End
Bound across the cinder causeway
From the furnace to the quarry
Through the fields of oil

Highlander · Joined: 12 Feb 2007 Posts: 348 Location: Scotland

As a teenager I always knew the best programmes to watch if she called them filthy Cool

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Over the hill they came....the greatest Army in the World.....The Tartan Army

iwarburton · Joined: 08 Dec 2006 Posts: 2133 Location: Northumberland

I don't have any strong view for or against Mrs Whitehouse but if anyone can make a dramatised biography work, it's Julie Walters. I'll watch if she's in it.

Ian.