Absolute Power (2003–2005)

Stephen Fry: Charles Prentiss

Photos 

Quotes 

• Charles Prentiss : Now. So... er... paintings... in the style of John Sell Cotman, Tom Girtin, Turner... The great tradition of English watercolourists and by extension, therefore, your enemy is... painters who prefer to use acrylics? Um... help me out. Um... right. "A.H." They're all signed A.H. Er... That would be Alice? Agatha? Give me a clue.

  Martin McCabe : Adolf Hitler.

  Lord Harcourt : The Commandant's desk from Auschwitz. His chair. This key once unlocked the main gate at Belsen. And over here, and this is particularly recherche, a little canister, unused, marked "Zyklon".

  Martin McCabe : Could you spare us a moment, please?

  Roddy Growse : Oh, yes, of course. It is a bit overwhelming. Take your time.

  Martin McCabe : God forgive me, Charles. We've got to get out of here. This is quite impossible.

  Charles Prentiss : Nothing's impossible, Martin, if we've set our mind to it. We don't falter.

  Martin McCabe : What?

  Charles Prentiss : When Edwina revealed so vividly to us that she was actually a man, did we hesitate in promoting her memoir?

  Martin McCabe : Charles, we need to get you back to London.

  Charles Prentiss : If I want your opinion, Martin, I'll give it to me. No. We took the client. We're not about to ditch the client because things have got a bit eggy.

  Martin McCabe : A bit eggy? Charles, they're fucking Nazis.

  Charles Prentiss : That's the ultimate PR challenge, isn't it? Decades of terrible press, but what did they actually achieve?

  Charles Prentiss : Apart from the slaughter of millions of Jews? I can't believe I'm hearing this! You cannot spin the Final Solution.

  Charles Prentiss : They gave us Gewurztraminer, Riefenstahl, the Autobahn, the Volkswagen, the iconic use of dark leathers and they made the sausages run on time.

  Martin McCabe : You cannot spin the Holocaust.

  Charles Prentiss : Well, 20 years ago you couldn't pay people to have an Alsatian. Devil dogs. Then rebrand them as German Shepherds - German - and suddenly, bingo, they're top of the poochy pops. You don't have to "buy" the video, you can "own" it. See? All in a word.

  Martin McCabe : Poochy pops?

  Charles Prentiss : Above all, Martin, think of the money. The money's going to be bloody outrageous.

  Lord Harcourt : [leaving the basement]  The Hebrew - it's always him. 2,000 years and nothing's changed.

  Charles Prentiss : Yes. I've never really understood this thing about the Jews, why they're such a menace. They look and behave just like us.

  Lord Harcourt : Exactly.

  Martin McCabe : I'm a Jew.

  [all look at him menacingly] 

  Charles Prentiss : [getting in their car]  Never, never, never let us do anything like that, Martin, ever again.

• Colin Priestley : [about the Democrabus]  He loves it.

  Charles Prentiss : What?

  Colin Priestley : It's quintessentially British, it has tradition, it has flair, it has...

  Charles Prentiss : ...wheels.

  Colin Priestley : Yes. It's also got democracy. It's modern.

  Charles Prentiss : It's a bus.

  Colin Priestley : It's in tune with the people, it's blue-skies thinking. It reminds one of childhood, of day trips, of the seaside. It's radical but rooted.

  Charles Prentiss : He wants it?

  Colin Priestley : He wants the whole package. This'll get rid of the old bastards once and for all, spending the rest of their lives in some travelling, never-ending Radio Five Live phone-in. It'll look like sweeping reform, but the beauty of it is that essentially it's totally meaningless.

  Charles Prentiss : It's certainly that.

  Colin Priestley : It's a pity we can't acknowledge your part in all of this, Charles. It seems so unfair that I get all the credit. Still, who knows? I might be able to swing it with the PM for you to get a seat in the Lords. Which would you prefer, top or bottom deck?

• Charles Prentiss : Are you familiar with your arse? Because your wife has just saved it.