TV Review: The Revolution Will Be Televised, BBC3

The Revolution Will Be Televised

So what do you do when you’ve mercilessly mocked Britain’s most famous politicians and their security teams have probably got pictures of you as their smartphone screensavers? Pretty obvious really. You do what Sacha Baron Cohen did when Ali G's pranks made him too recognisable over here and head to the USA. 

And so the new series of The Revolution Will Be Televised finds Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse going for the jugular in America too. Senators and aspiring politicos including a nephew of George Bush find themselves unwittingly in their crosshairs, but the money shot comes when Bill Clinton is the target of numerous innuendo-laden Lewinsky scandal-inspired questions: “They keep forcing bills down our throat…if you get my jizz…”

It’s ridiculously childish but apart from admiring the duo’s nerve – and their skill at bodyswerving bodyguards – they do also have a satirical intention. Facts are included in the commentary to show that there is a reason they are pestering bankers to give us our money back or teasing teachers about carrying guns in schools. 

Of course this programme is derivative. Baron Cohen did it, Dom Joly did it, Dennis Pennis did it and if you go back far enough there was an Australian called Norman Gunston who did it in the early days of Channel 4. But to Rubinstein and Prowse’s credit they are closest to Mark Thomas, in that they actually have a political agenda and aren’t just poking fun at celebrities. As I said, it's incredibly puerile, but still good to see them, in a new homegrown political stitch-up, offering Gordon Brown a book with his picture on the front entitled I Fucked The Economy.

The Revolution Will Be Televised, Tuesdays, 10.30pm, BBC3.

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