First viewed : Uncertain
Since his breakthrough in 1985 with the parody single Nineteeen-Not-Out, Rory Bremner had pootled along nicely with a couple of shows on BBC Two , appearances on The Kenny Everett Show and regular work on Spitting Image. He was still primarily known for impersonating sports commentators.
When he moved to Channel Four in 1993 he was revealed as a rather different beast with a switch to politicians and sharp satire. He really came of age with the return of Labour in 1997 and famously got under the skin of Tony Blair's press guru and hatchet man Alistair Campbell, portrayed as a thuggish gangster. With the Tories pretty supine under William Hague and Iain Duncan-Smith , he was described by one paper as "the real Leader of the Opposition".
With the Sunday night show lasting an hour, a fair amount of screen time was given to his writing partners, two dry old satirists from the sixties , John Bird and John Fortune. Usefully, both of them had considerable acting experience so they took some of the pressure off Bremner performing satirical sketches in which he didn't appear. For me, these performed the same function as Ronnie Corbett's armchair slot in The Two Ronnies, an excuse to make a brew. As my friend Sean said of their material, "it's clever but it's not funny".
In an act of unparalleled generosity in 1999, Bremner re-titled the show to give them equal billing, like The Supremes in reverse. Nobody was tuning in to see those two old buffers so that was astonishing.
The show ended in 2007, since when Bremner has been active without being as prominent.
As much as I came to this show because of the impressions of the likes of Des Lynam, it probably was the start of my political awakening. Perhaps this is where my cynicism of modern politics began, from which I have yet to vote for one of the main parties.
ReplyDelete'Nobody was tuning in to see those two old buffers'
ReplyDeleteI was actually!
Great Mark - always happy to accommodate a counter -argument !
ReplyDelete