3. TV and Radio

British satire isn't angry enough to be funny

The cancelation of Channel 4's Ten O'Clock Live reflects the sad state of
British satire. The problem lies with the scripts.

Rik Mayall as Alan B'Stard in The New Statesman, the hit TV series

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That won’t read funny on the page but it was ruddy funny on screen –
unlike 10 O’Clock Live which must have looked very good on page but was
judged to have failed in execution. Channel 4’s satire show, now axed,
had everything going for it: strong writers, four of the best comedians
in the country, plenty of material courtesy of a government ripe for

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Q: what went wrong? A: the producers confused sketch comedy with
satire. Knock-about comedy doesn’t always sit well with a serious
political message, which meant that Ten O’Clock Live felt like there
was a disconnect between the delivery and the material. To make satire
work, the performers have to have total commitment to the political
message – and the laughter has to arise from anger.

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in recognition of B’stard’s shameless evil and what it represents: the
triumph of amoral Thatcherism. The laughter is a congratulation of the
author for having nailed something. And that’s how good satire works:

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Well, we can definitively prove that the British are capable of
producing great satire. We almost invented it with Beyond the Fringe in
the 1960s, perfected it with Eighties shows like Yes, Minister and
Spitting Image, and scored a wonderful home run with The Thick of It.