Humour is the only way forward
As my mum would say: you have to laugh
With the big freeze gripping a lot of Ireland, the UK and the United States, it would have been mighty handy to be able to write about snowy stories, but as devoted readers will know: I used that up before Christmas. Dammit.
Instead, I’ve decided to go early on another topic: political satire. No doubt from 20 January onwards, political satire will seem rendered almost impotent in the face of reality. But at least you’ll be armed with this list of silliness which can act as an escape as well as a reminder that this isn’t the first time in history that politicians seemed so maddening to vast swathes of the population.
As a nipper, I used to sneak out of bed on Friday nights to watch Have I Got News For You and the monologues on the late night chat shows with David Letterman, Jay Leno & Conan O’Brien - because for some inexplicable reason throughout a lot of the mid-90s we had CNBC on our TV in Dublin... I’m sure most of the jokes went right over my head but I was hooked. Ever since, I have loved & adored stand-up and satire - so here are some highlights of what I’ve encountered over the years.
TL;DR
Read Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh and It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis; watch Veep, Yes, Minister & Yes, Prime Minister; listen to Everything is News; watch Dr Strangelove and In The Loop.
READ
I knew I would love Put Out More Flags because it was written by Evelyn Waugh, but also the title reminded me of that wonderful Eddie Izzard bit “Do you have a flag?” (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, for the love of god, click the link there & watch it).
Put Out More Flags was published in 1942, three years before Brideshead Revisited, with several characters reappearing from his previous works including the inimitable Basil Seal, the wondrously alliterative Peter Pastmaster & the triple barrel: Sir Alastair Digby-Vane-Trumpington. Waugh’s usual acerbic wit is on full display as war evacuees - removed from urban centres so as not to get bombed - bitch & moan about having been removed from their homes against their will, household staff happily skip off to work in munitions factories for a bit of fun (believing anything could be better than a life in service) and the caddish Basil Seal makes a living taking money from country-dwellers who want rid of the city children they’ve been lumbered with. It marks the beginning of Waugh’s move from comic writing to the more serious writings of his later career.
And now for how the Yanks do it: It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis was published in 1935 and tells the story of Berzelius Windrip. A tactless populist who becomes America’s demagogue leader in 1936 after beating President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the Democratic nomination and then defeating his Republican opponent in the election.
Windrip’s inability to deliver on his promises to deliver a booming economy eventually lead to his exile but not before his opponents (both without & within) plot against him & each other. In 2016, sales of the novel surged following the election of a certain DJT. Penguin even released an anniversary edition on the day of Trump’s inauguration. Not quite the light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek read of Waugh but a fascinating page turner with delightfully observed characters nonetheless, such as the anti-suffrage (& basically anti-woman) woman Adelaide Tarr-Gimmitch who, in appealing to President Windrip to ensure women stay in their rightful place: the home, does herself out of a role in the Cabinet because she is, in fact, a woman.
WATCH
I am not ashamed to say that this Substack is an Armando Iannucci stan account. Whilst The Thick of It is almost universally known & loved due to its being a BBC property, Iannucci’s follow-up political piece set in the United States, Veep, might have slipped under people’s radar as it being an HBO production meant it was only broadcast on Sky Atlantic upon first release.
It is hilarious incompetence, cattiness and machiavellian divilment of the highest order. The comedy queen that is Julia Louis-Dreyfus stars as Selina Meyer, a former Senator who becomes Vice-President (also known as Veep). Constantly enraged by the impotence of her office, both Meyer and the dreadful people who work for her engage in delightfully devious and petty political hijinks in a vain attempt to wrest more, well, any power from somewhere. The show was showered with awards during its run from 2012 to 2019 and rightly so. If you haven’t seen it, may I beseech you to seek it out and settle in for all seven seasons.
Yes, Minister & Yes, Prime Minister
Yes Minister focussed on the work of MP Jim Hacker just as he is appointed a minister in the cabinet, ably assisted by permanent secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby and civil servant Bernard Woolley ran for three seasons from 1980 to 1984. Anyone with an Instagram account has undoubtedly come across clips of this insanely prescient and timeless examination of the British political system over the last few years.
With British acting legend Nigel Hawthorne as Sir Humphrey, Brexit was in fact explained forty years ago:
Hacker is promoted to Prime Minister for a further two seasons - both of which continued to be as beautifully scripted and impeccably delivered in the clipped tones heard above. The shows are available all over the place - some on BBC iPlayer for those in the UK otherwise, they’re on YouTube as well as most other streaming platforms.
LISTEN
I’m not great with fictional podcasts yet (I’m keeping at it) but one that has tickled my fancy recently was Everything is News.
BBC journalist Julia Markham is paired up with very recently ousted Tory cabinet minister Tom Dudley-Brown and an unholy alliance is formed. It takes about an episode to warm up as the audience gets to know the characters, but it does deliver as they both revert to type quite as much you’d imagine. Markham is played by Julia Price, who also penned the series, with Michael Clarke delivering a hugely believable Dudley-Brown the ex Tory MP.
WATCH
As one of the greatest movies of all time Dr Strangelove is hardly a hidden gem but it’s always worth a watch.
From the brain of cinematic powerhouse Stanley Kubrick, the movie stars Peter Sellers in no fewer than three roles (not unusual for Sellers - he did it in other movies) including the title role of Dr Strangelove himself. The movie is a darkly comic take on how close we all are to mutually assured destruction thanks to nuclear weapons. It’s about as cheery as it sounds; but I did say darkly comic.
And lo, she did confirm her Iannucci obsession by featuring not one but two of his works in the one newsletter. In The Loop is somewhat of a sequel to the four seasons of The Thick of It.
Peter Capaldi is as foul-mouthed as ever as Downing Street’s Director of Communications Malcolm Tucker and whilst Chris Addison also returns, his character has a different name but practically the exact same personality as in The Thick of It. Tom Hollander is toe-curlingly brilliant as completely useless British Minister for International Development - and this time they’re all in Washington DC. Not only does Tony Soprano star as an American general, the screenplay was written by Jesse “I invented Succession” Armstrong. Now that’s what I call pedigree. It’s an impressive display of Americans being believably sarcastic and Brits being unbelievably British. One to watch again & again.