Gallery

The Micro Men on Micro Men

Posted on 16 Jun 2010 at 18:35

We reveal what the Micro Men thought of the BBC comedy drama that focused on their bitter 1980s battle for home computing supremacy

The row between Sir Clive Sinclair and Christopher Curry, which resulted in Curry defecting to Acorn, was the focal point of the BBC’s Micro Men.

Although tongue-in-cheek (comedian Alexander Armstrong played Sinclair, with The Office’s Martin Freeman as Curry), the drama portrayed Sinclair as a short-tempered control freak. Sir Clive was unamused. “It was a travesty of the truth,” he told The Independent. “It just had no bearing on the truth. It was terrible.”

It was quite unfair on Clive, because all the nasty things they said about him were, of course, true

Curry – who has since mended bridges with Sinclair – agrees. “They interviewed us all without really saying quite what it was about,” Curry said. “The BBC decided it was going to feature me working for Clive, and me having a fight with Clive, and that was all it was interested in. Some people thought it was quite a good programme, but it was a bit of a travesty of the realities that went on. It made Clive look stupid, and didn’t make me look much better.”

Not all of them were unhappy. “It was quite unfair on Clive, because all the nasty things they said about him were, of course, true,” said Hauser. “The trouble is he has a second side, and he can be absolutely charming and he’s a great visionary and can inspire people to do wonderful things, and all that just got lost in Micro Men – although I thought it was very good.”

Steve Furber concurs. “The first thing I found pleasing was they managed to make it an interesting story. They found an interesting thread in the relationship between Sinclair and Chris Curry. The anecdotes I knew about were all approximately right – although exaggerated.”

Author: Barry Collins and Stuart Turton