By a delicious irony, Yes Minister is being rerun on BBC Four at the same time as the Covid inquiry grills the country’s leading civil servants and politicians.
No one, though, could confuse the fictional Sir Humphrey Appleby with Party Marty or the deputy cabinet secretary who brought a karaoke machine to one of the illegal lockdown parties at 10 Downing Street.
Just a fortnight after a universally acclaimed finale brought Succession to a triumphant conclusion, one might have expected the showrunner of HBO’s mega hit to be enjoying some well-earned R&R, perhaps chartering a yacht in the French Riviera, or retreating to a mansion in the Hollywood hills.
Instead, Jesse Armstrong could be found attending a rally in arguably the least relaxing place on Earth, plonked, during a heatwave, between M&M’s, Wetherspoons and the giant Odeon in the visceral nightmare that is Leicester Square.
Little did we think, when Alan Partridge first appeared as a sports reporter on BBC Radio 4’s incisive news spoof On the Hour in 1991 – his voice inspired by the late, great John Motson – that he would become a comedy icon, a national treasure even.
It seems appropriate that someone as terminally uncool as Alan, a man who, after all, is in no doubt that Wings were a better band than the Beatles, should have emerged during John Major’s premiership. Steve Coogan inhabits the character to a degree that is so brilliant as to be almost uncanny.
Armando Iannucci, who cut his creative teeth on such wondrous radio fare as the news lampoon On the Hour, revealed recently that the inspiration for creating his era-defining political satire The Thick of It, was the Iraq war. He was infuriated by what he saw as Prime Minister Tony Blair’s willingness to “twist the narrative” in order to justify his support for what many regarded as a woefully ill-thought-through conflict.
He has topped an illustrious career in news, chat and daytime shows, not to mention his stint on North Norfolk Digital Radio, with the conquest of a new broadcasting bastion: the podcast.
What he once assumed was the domain of “pale, tech-obsessed social lepers who couldn’t get a platform on any meaningful broadcaster” has become his creative audio kingdom.
The disruptive, combative political landscape created by Brexit and the election of Donald Trump is, on the face of it, a gift for UK television satirists and their venerable tradition of biting and often brutal parody.
While Theresa May’s blandness may do little to whet a satirist’s appetite, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage bring larger-than-life personas to Brexit. And Trump is, well, Trump.
I’m in a writing phase at the moment, and the trouble with writing is that it doesn’t lead to an exciting week of activities. Washing out a coffee cup and shouting at Iain Duncan Smith is about as stimulating as it gets.
The Society is offering 20 bursaries to students studying Television Production and Broadcast Journalism courses at accredited universities. A further five technology bursaries are also available to students studying Computing and Engineering at some of the top courses at British universities.
The Royal Television Society has announced the appointment of eight Vice Presidents, including Baroness Doreen Lawrence and Lord (Tony) Hall, Director General of the BBC.
The other appointments are David Abraham (CEO, C4); Lord (Melvyn) Bragg; Adam Crozier (CEO, ITV); Armando Iannucci; Ian Jones (CEO, S4C); and Gavin Patterson (CEO, BT).
It is the question that British writers and commissioners perennially ask: which system works best – the UK’s single voice or the US’s showrunner model?
Former head of BBC Worldwide Productions turned independent producer Jane Tranter tried to answer this key question with a panel of writers, who outlined their experiences to see how they compared.
She pointed out that, during her seven years in the US, it was not a subject the industry there generally debated openly.
