Beaton, Alistair
Entry updated 7 April 2025. Tagged: Author, TV.
(1947- ) Scottish playwright, journalist, translator, Television writer and author. He gained early recognition for co-authoring such television shows as Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979-1982); the Satirical The Trial of Tony Blair (first broadcast 15 January 2007 More4), set in 2010, primarily arraigns the prime minister for his support of the American war against Iraq. He is also of sf interest for his novel A Planet for the President (2004), a Near Future Political Satire focusing on an American president who – after his denial of Climate Change, even after the destruction of much of New Orleans in a hurricane and Los Angeles in a great drought-triggered fire (see California) – looks for a solution to the Overpopulation crisis. The solution his think-tank arrives at is to seed a world-wide Pandemic against which only Americans will be vaccinated; but because the president had previously "swept away several thousand 'petty regulations'" the vaccine, which has not been tested properly, does not work. For Homo sapiens it is the End of the World. [JC]
Alistair Beaton
born Glasgow, Scotland: 1947
works (highly selected)
- A Planet for the President (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004) [hb/Black and Blue/Photos.com]
links
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