‘Monday evening could be nerve-wracking for Mr Wilson: The Chequers Manoeuvre, a play on BBC-2, is about a team of assassins and how they plan to kill a British Prime Minister. Its authors, Charlotte and Denis Plimmer, have left no possibility unexplored…’

Sadly, the vast majority of the plays scripted by the Plimmers' have long since fallen victim to the archive purging of the following decade. The sole survivor however, 1968’s The Chequers Manoeuvre, has fortunately been preserved ( one of a handful of the original colour productions retained as 16mm b/w telerecordings ). Broadcast on 30th September as part of the new autumn season of plays with a “contemporary flavour”, The Chequers Manoeuvre exemplifies many of the Plimmers’ thematic trademarks, in which the threat of violence – both real and imaginary – increasingly takes centre-stage.

The play opens with the coming together of four individuals - the Prime Minister’s secretary, a weapons specialist, a topographer and a driver - at a deserted Army camp. This ‘secret’ meeting is presided over by the mysterious figure of the ‘Brigadier’ ( Ernest Clark ), who alone knows the common factor that binds the group, and by extension why they have to meet in a such an isolated spot. As the meeting unfolds, it becomes clear that the group has been gathered to discuss a very sinister purpose – the formulation of a plot to assassinate the British Prime Minister. Every aspect of this plan requires a great deal of calculated deliberation, there can be no mistakes…

Not surprisingly, the controversial tone of the play was not lost on BBC executives, with the Plimmers’ initial story idea of “Let's kill the Prime Minister” causing some inevitable hesitation. In a press interview that trailed the broadcast of the play, Denis Plimmer emphasised that the PM was to be a “mythical” character, albeit the circumstances outlined in the play could conceivably have some legitimate base in reality:

“After some hesitation, they [ the BBC ] agreed. They thought it might put ideas into people's heads, but I'm sure the clever men who look after Mr Wilson have already out-thought amateurs like ourselves, and if our play does teach them anything they didn't know already, they can spring into action with it at once”.

The idea behind the play was born at an earlier point in the Plimmers’ writing career, when they were sent to Paris by the Reader's Digest for an article on the attempted assassination of de Gaulle in 1962. "We went over every inch of the route with the French police”, recalled Plimmer, “re-enacting the plan, and the idea stuck in our minds. We thought the USA was over-supplied with assassins already so we set the play in England”. The Plimmers had been struck by the preciseness of the assassin’s plot, and considered that this ‘finesse’ might in turn prove a fitting subject for a play. Researching their source material, they even went so far as to try out a potential weapon – a .50 calibre Browning machine-gun, which they chose on the advice of an international gun expert ( and which eventually found its way into the finished play ).

With The Chequers Manoeuvre entering production in the summer of 1968, producer Innes Lloyd was keen to utilise the BBC’s Colour Outside Broadcast facilities to realise the play entirely on location ( it is notable that before moving to the drama department, Lloyd’s television career had actually begun with the Outside Broadcast unit, overseeing a range of projects such as the Wimbledon tournaments and various state occasions ). He duly assigned one of the BBC’s most experienced staff directors - Christopher Barry – to handle the production. As Barry recollects, this was then something of an experimental procedure:

“This was actually the second of three Thirty Minute Theatre plays that I directed for Innes Lloyd in 1968/69. The cameras used were the colour OB cameras that had been used for sporting events for some time, and were now for the first time being employed for drama. The Chequers Manoeuvre was unusual in that it was an all-OB video (2” Ampex!) production. It was quite a challenge, I recall, with those big Outside Broadcast cameras and mountings but, fortunately, the play was staged as a fairly ‘static’ piece and didn't require much camera movement - apart from a demonstration firing of a Browning gun. The gun was actually in the hands of a Registered official Armourer who was used in all movie and TV programmes ( and was, of course, firing blanks! )”

The location work was conducted entirely within the grounds of RAF Station West Malling in Kent, whose derelict environs provided a suitable backdrop for the sinister proceedings:

“There was no in-studio work and that was one reason for setting it on an old airfield, and in fact we recorded most of it in an empty blister hanger. It was a very hot and sunny couple of days on location and the make-up artist had a busy job coping with the redder and redder sunburn on the actors' faces. Yes, it was a colour production! In fact it was on this series ( the studio based production Walk in the Dark ) that I first ever used colour.”

“The play was mostly presented as a briefing for the assassination, but there was obvious questioning and discussions of the points that arose. It was necessary to keep up the suspense that this was an imminent attempt and it was not revealed until the end that it had all been an MI5 operation all along - an exercise in security.”

As with many of the Plimmer-scripted scenarios, a small ‘minimalist’ cast is used to fitting effect ; for this production, Barry assembled a number of well known faces, including notable character actors such as Michael Ripper ( a regular supporting actor in a host of Hammer productions throughout the decade, and whose TV credits were equally considerable ), and the enduringly popular Geoffrey Palmer, with whom Barry had worked the previous year ( itself the beginning of a long working relationship ). For the character of the Brigadier especially, Barry was originally keen to attract a ‘big’ name to the production:

“In an ambitious frame of mind, I had all manner of well-known stars like Attenborough, Niven and Mills for the role of Brigadier Glover, but I thought Ernest Clark had all the authority and charisma to give an edge to the character. I was indeed well-served by Geoffrey Palmer as Whybrow [ topographer ], and I had several actors other than Michael Ripper in mind for the weapons specialist Nixon, including Derek Newark who actually became Bert Gregson [ the driver ]”

With the location work completed, it was apparent that the experiment had paid off. In fact Lloyd sent a personal memo to Barry on this very point, considering that the play “will turn out to be one of the better OB's that we have done, and one which will prove the worth of using this machinery for this sort of programme”. Keen to utilise Barry’s strengths as a director for future projects, Lloyd also invited him back the following year to direct The Trespassers ( broadcast in October 1969 )

The play was never granted a repeat showing, although Christopher Barry was delighted to learn that a 16mm telerecording of the play had been retained in the BBC’s Film and Videotape Library. With the current resurgence of interest in the BBC’s archived drama output however, one can only hope that neglected gems such as The Chequers Manoeuvre will at some point gather a new and appreciative audience.

Thanks so much to Kathy Hopple for telling me about the Mausoleum Club (UK) website, from which this article was taken. It was written by Colin Cutler and many of the photos were taken by the play's director, Christopher Barry. I'm glad Geoffrey didn't grow attached to that beard.