I don’t think even our most politically obsessed reader would be able to complain about the quantity of election coverage over the past month. Quality’s another issue, of course – and yes I am looking at you BBC1’s This Week, with your ridiculous Abbott and Portillo pantomime.
But there is one area where this election has found TV severely lacking: intelligent political comedy.
True, there’s Have I Got News For You, still (amazingly) fresh and funny after 21 years on screen. But such has been the pace of this election campaign, that its weekly appearances have nearly always been playing catch-up in dated fashion.
The less said about Channel 4’s Bremner Bird & Fortune’s Daily Wind-Up the better: what I’ve watched has been stale, tepid and – crucially – not funny. Last night’s for example featured a long, rambling sketch in which Rory impersonated Charles Kennedy outside Lib Dem HQ for no apparent reason other than that he can do the voice.
Only BBC Radio 4’s The Now Vote Show has kept on top of the election in a way which addresses the issues, treats its audience as intelligent, and remembers to bring the funny.
But what British television has signally failed to do is re-create anything like Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, which with sophistication and irony skewers not only politicians, but also the media’s clunky reporting.
If you’re not familiar with his show, click on this link to watch a recent segment where Stewart looks at the British election, and points out its absurdities.
As Charles Kennedy once observed, “Politics is far too serious to be taken too seriously”. This election campaign has scaled the heights of some incredible moments of game-changing energy; it has also slummed the lows of some gut-wrenching moments of black media propaganda. Yet nobody has been pointing a well-aimed satirical stick at this ant-hill for the past four weeks.
Tomorrow night will see Jimmy Carr, Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell present Channel 4’s alternative election special: sounds great, and I’m sorry I’ll miss it. But how much better would it have been if they had been teamed up to put on a show during the campaign? Next time, please.
Or I might just have to write a stiff letter to points of View.
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17 Comments
I always thought that Jon Stewart was a sort-of American Chris Morris, with a bit of the American Jewish stand-up comedy tradition thrown in. The absence of Morris (and the likes of Armando Ianucci) from our screens certainly leaves a big gap in the TV schedules though.
I actually put forward this exact idea to Five a couple of years back and got fairly far along the line with it. The simple answer as to why it didn’t get off the ground is that The Daily Show doesn’t get enough viewers on More4 to make a British version of it economically viable, even at the proposed slot of 11pm (as ITV were still doing their news at 10:30pm then so it was to follow stright on from the last major news bulletin). The same idea was proposed to C4 who replied with a simple “Yeah, but where are you going to find a British Jon Stewart.” and that was that.
In addition, Jon Stewart has assembled a broad line-up of top comedians (you look at where Colbert, Carell and Corddry are now) and to do something similar would cost a fair bit.
Finally, British audiences like the quiz format of HIGNFY and Mock the Week and the only recent attempt at doing a Daily Show type (Tonightly with Jason Manford on 4) was unfunny and bombed in the ratings. The satirical non-quiz news shows that have got off the ground (The Day Today and The 11 O’Clock Show) had amazing talent and launched the careers of Chris Morris, Steve Coogan, Sacha Baron Cohen and Ricky Gervais. What are the chances of that happening again? Very low, in the opinion of TV Execs.
The obvious candidates for a British Jon Stewart are Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris. What that highlights, in its own way, is the banality of the question “why don’t we have here?” We have a different political system and a different media. Our politics isn’t as frequently ridiculous as America’s is, because we don’t have the egregious problems it has; we have more insidious and subtle problems, which lend themselves to longer, more sophisticated critiques like those of The Thick of It, The Day Today and Yes Minister. Not enough happens in this country to sustain a daily satirical news show like The Daily Show. In fact, Charlie Brooker manages to cover most of the big stuff once a week in 30 minutes.
So ok, we don’t have Stewart. Instead, we’ve got lots of people doing satire quite well. I think a British version of his show, just as an American version of The Thick of It probably wouldn’t work. There you go.
His name’s Armando Ianucci and he works in slightly different mediums.
Seriously guys; everything which is good works organically. There might be a need for a British Daily Show, but if you try to force one you get something like ‘The Half Hour Comedy Hour’. If you don’t know what that is, for the love of god try not to find out.
Remember, of maybe you don’t, that the Daily Show existed before Jon and was terrible. A big ingredient which makes the show work is this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE an angry, frustrated guy with an astute mind and a devastating sharp ability to verbal out-think his interlocutors wedded to a top comedy talent. Jason Jason Manford? Is that a joke?
What seems to be more attainable, and which is also lacking, is a British Rachel Maddow. The Newsnight team have been trying to fake it for years, but there’s no substitute for someone who is genuinely well educated for being able to parse and scrutinise news. Paxman’s act is getting old, and the fact IIRC that he has a 2:2 in English should be a warning against anyone taking him too seriously on legal or economic matters. Andrew Neill is an oaf; an aggressive bully who does not listen to what his interviewee is saying but instead tries to bludgeon them to death with his own obtuseness. The information content of news will never improve until journalists who interview politicians are capable of engaging with them as equals (or better, their superiors) on political, economic and philosophical grounds. We need a British Rachel Maddow.
P.S. – And you could easily get one on Paxman’s salary. I don’t know what they pay Andrew Neil but the reality is that cronyist connections rather than intelligence or ability seem to count for more in British media.
Brin back “Spitting Image”, that’s what I say!
Charlie Brooker is as close as we come – I always thought his newswipe was as close as we got and had pretty good potential (even if his cynicism is a bit much for the more feel good Jon Stewart). But when Jon Stewart has been profiling the election almost every day, and the show on More 4, isn’t Jon Stewart actually the British Jon Stewart?
Here’s an example (kind of ironic, given how the actual Daily Show covered it, but forgiven for being transatlantic): how would a ‘British Daily Show’ have covered the ‘bigotgate’ event. A real Daily Show would criticise the news coverage of it and the fact that few people seemed to be willing to say ‘maybe she was a bigot’. A ‘British Daily Show’ as judged by the standard of 2DTV and Dead Ringers and Tonightly and all the people over the years on HIGNFY who have used ‘Liberal Democrats’ as a punchline would have criticised Brown for calling an old woman a bigot… with a few gags thrown in.
I find it very hard to envision a ‘British Daily Show’ which wouldn’t “hurt America” in the sense used above. Do you not remember 2DTV? Shows like that don’t scrutinize the news, they don’t have a message behind their humour instead they just reinforce the media frames which are already own there. Plus UK television shows since Spitting Image (honourable exception in the case of HIGNFY; thank fuck for Hislop) have been freakishly unwilling to talk about politics instead of splitting their time equally between the political and ‘Victoria Beckham’. The Daily Show is for people who don’t watch the news but who know internet memes to become more informed citizens. ‘British answers to the Daily Show’ are for people to pat themselves on the head for have ingested the correct media frames -> they make people less informed, they further lower the level of public debate, they create yet more power and influence for the framers, PR men and spinners and by doing all this they hurt the country. “Stop… hurting America. And join us.
I have enormous respect for Dara O’Brien – if there were ever to be a British Jon Stewart I think he’s the closest you’d get who’s currently active: someone educated, knowledgeable and extremely quick witted comedicly.
@Leo – You’re totally right. How could I forget. Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe is the British Daily Show. As close as is worth getting. It should be given more money, more staff and put on more frequently.
Andrew Neil is variable. He seems intelligent. He can be good but he is not so good when he is angry.
I suggest that intellectual stuff is never going to have the ratings of blockbusters
I think Newswipe is as close as we’re going to get in all honesty. Not that I particularly watch either.
Re: Bremner Bird & Fortune’s Daily Wind-Up
When I watched it the other night briefly what I noticed was that quite a few of the jokes had been lifted straight from blog posts and blog comments across the board.
Agree with Stephen on the comedy/satire vacuum in British TV, but not that the quality of (broadcast) coverage during this election campaign has been particularly low.
The Channel 4 programme the other night on the coming fiscal squeeze and the real choices it entails was a good attempt, and the BBC has scrutinised the parties’ policies in all areas through its Daily Politics election debates series.
And whatever you think of This Week, Andrew Neil is one of the most incisive interviewers around, more keen to get stuck into the policy nitty gritty than many, and much more knowledgeable about it as well (particularly on the economy, education and defence matters). He has an ego to go with it of course, and can be corny in the extreme, but fundamentally he’s an astute observer and strong interviewer.
The newspapers are another matter… Some of the shoddy ‘journalism’ (and not just by the tabloids) has been shameful.
Marcus Brigstock used to do a show on BBC4 very similar to the daily show and his bits on the Now Show are like a more aggressive Jon Stewart.
Though ultimately if your looking for a British Jon Stewart- John Oliver- who is one of the main daily show correspondents/ writers. He also does a fantastic podcast called the Bugle with Andy Zaltzman.
Good luck to everyone tomorrow!!
Heh. Of all the criticisms I could have about the UK, not having a Daily Show isn’t one of them.
I find The Daily Show to be very low-brow humour that consists of Jon Stewart in front of a crowd of trained monkeys, cheering and/or whooping every 5 seconds, as Jon plays 5 second clips to them and then stares at the camera in faux disbelief. When he does cover the English (or anyone outside New York, pretty much), his stereotypical portrayal of them is corny to the point of embarrassment. I stopped watching it quite a while back. So no, I don’t think we need a Daily Show. I’d gladly watch BB&F, HIGNFY, The Thick Of It, Newswipe, 2DTV (yes! I loved that!), or most other British comedy, over it.
Oh, and Americans always saying this election is about ‘England’ is always hilarious… I always imagine Salmond’s head exploding when he hears it.
Three words: The Daily Mash
Lots of good comments here. I particularly agree with the view that there’s a gap for an intelligent, funny news-oriented show. Part of C4’s public service remit, if you ask me, but I can also imagine a BBC2 version.
I wish I could find Bremner, Bird & Fortune funny, but I don’t. I also very much wanted Marcus Brigstocke’s thing a while back to work but couldn’t get into it. The News Quiz has its moments. I mostly hate This Week but keep going back blindly hoping. And actually it was fairly decent yesterday, thanks in no small part to Armando Iannucci.
But yes, The Vote Now Show, HIGNFY and Screenwipe have come closest I think. The difficulty is sustaining it daily. I think the trick is a mix of non-monologue segments: interviews, reviews, sketches, guest spots. Takes the pressure off the host, because in truth there is no-one in British TV like Jon Stewart. Andy Hamilton, Iannucci, Brooker, O’Brien or David Mitchell could do a very good job though.
What about Stephen Fry? It’s below him…but I think it could work. Especially considering how British politics is…
I think we could do with a Jon Stewart-type taking on all the parties in British politics.
A little cold water would be much better than the perpetual circus of anger, false claims, false hope and bad memory.
Have I got News for You is more comedy than satire, Jez