Spitting Image Margaret Thatcher puppet to go on public display for the first time

Somerset House exhibition marks the first time a ‘Spitting Image’ puppet has gone on public display

A Margaret Thatcher cast, created from the original puppet used on Spitting Image, will go on public display later this month.

In an announcement released on Monday (24 October), London culture venue Somerset House revealed that a forthcoming exhibition titled The Horror Show! will house the puppet.

Before this, the puppet was kept at Cambridge University Library’s Spitting Image Archive, created when the programme’s co-creator Roger Law donated his entire personal archive in 2018.

The puppet will be part of a “cabinet of curiosities” within the exhibition, titled Misrule Britannia, which aims to provide a look at “the dark shadow of socio-political conflict and tension that defined the 1970s and 80s in Britain”.

Standing at just over one metre tall, the puppet was created by using the original mould used by Peter Fluck for the satirical sketch series in the Eighties.

With all original iterations of the Thatcher puppets in private collections, this is the first time a Spitting Image Thatcher puppet has been publicly displayed in an exhibition.

The Horror Show! is co-curated by Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard and Claire Catterall, and will look at the last 50 years of British history through the horror genre, using over 200 artworks and culturally significant objects.

A statement describes the exhibition as a “landmark show [that] tells a story of the turbulence, unease and creative revolution at the heart of the British cultural psyche in three acts – Monster, Ghost and Witch.”

Margaret Thatcher puppet on Spitting Image (Spitting Image Archive)

The Thatcher puppet will feature in the first act, Monster.

Against a backdrop of unrest and loud uprising, Monster will chart “the origin story and ascent of the individuals who will go on to disrupt, define and destroy British culture, while exploring the monsters which plague society today.”

The Horror Show! exhibition opens on Thursday 27 October.