The Spitting Image puppets will tread the boards of London’s West End in 2022.
Spitting Image co-creator Roger Law added: “The last month has shown Spitting Image has been far too kind to Boris and his pals on TV recently. So to deliver the kind of sharp satire and laughter they deserve Spitting Image have decided to make a live production. Whilst Boris and his boys and girls level themselves ever upwards to the sunny uplands... we are preparing to level them down to size in a West End theatrical show. We can't give too much away at this time, possibly because we're still writing it, however, unlike Boris, we will deliver with no shortcuts. I'm afraid there will be lies because it's Boris.
I can tell you that we have devised a spectacular show-stopping ending, a huge carnival head of Boris that fills the stage will open its mouth and spew a snowstorm of paper lies all over the theatre. The lies printed on small pieces of paper will flutter down onto the audience who will be able to pick up their favourite Boris untruths and take them home as mementoes. Videndum spectaculum!”
Further information will be announced in due course.
Since returning in 2020 Spitting Image has delivered record subscribers for BritBox UK, the BBC and ITV created streaming platform, as well as picking up huge critical acclaim (quotes below). Across official social media channels, Spitting Image content has been hugely popular with over 200 million views globally, three No. 1 trending videos on YouTube and achieved praise across political the political divide (quotes below).
Three one-off specials for ITV have also seen huge success on terrestrial television: with a 4.4 million audience with a one-off US Election Special, the highest Saturday night ratings at that time in four years (one of ITV’s biggest Saturday night ABC1 audiences of 2020); a 2021 Halloween Special was the channel’s second most watched show on the Saturday it was broadcast; and a Christmas Special is scheduled for this Christmas Eve at 10pm.
Series two has already seen the introduction of new puppets of prominent figures including: Emma Raducanu, Olivia Colman, Sajid Javid, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Tom Cruise, Tom Daley, Jess Phillips, Ariana Grande, Gary Lineker, Bill Gates, Ellen DeGeneres, and Raheem Sterling, to name a few, to add to the existing cast of hundreds puppets of global figures including: Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, Cristiano Ronaldo, Prince Andrew, Harry Kane, Vladimir Putin, Harry & Meghan, Beyoncé, Angela Merkel, Dwayne Johnson, Gareth Southgate, Ed Sheeran, Jürgen Klopp, Elon Musk, Adele, Covid-19, James Corden, Emmanuel Macron, Mark Zuckerberg, Donald Trump, and Dominic Cummings.
With the world getting smaller and more turbulent, last year celebrated Spitting Image co-creator Roger Law returned to head up the show’s creative team, while multi-award-winner Jeff Westbrook (The Simpsons, Futurama) joined as Showrunner, leading the TV show’s international writing team on the iconic British satirical take on global events. A next generation of satirical writers and voice artists worked with established talent to drive a new wave of ‘public service satire’.
Writers on series 2 of the TV show included: Al Murray, Bert Tyler-Moore (The Windsors), Bill Odenkirk (The Simpsons), Brona C. Titley (The Tracey Ullman Show), Jason Hazeley & Nico Tatarowicz (Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe/Murder in Successville), Karl Minns (Russell Howard’s Good News), Keisha Zollar (Astronomy Club), Laura Major (Famalam), Matt Forde, Patric Verrone (The Simpsons), with many more joining the growing team.
Voice artists include: Billy West (Futurama), Debra Stephenson (The Impressions Show), Debra Wilson (Family Guy), Tom Stourton (Pls Like, Horrible Histories), Eshaan Akbar (Mock The Week) Indira Varma (Game of Thrones), Jess Robinson (The Imitation Game), John DiMaggio (Futurama), Lewis MacLeod (Dead Ringers), Lobo Chan (Killing Eve), Luke Kempner (The Imitation Game), Matt Forde (The Political Party) and Phil LaMarr (Pulp Fiction), with many more joining as the puppet cast grows.
Internationally, a bespoke German language version of the show has successfully launched in Germany with Der Spiegel hailing it as “really good” and news stories of far-right politicians from AfD considering legal action – Spitting Image: The Krauts’ Edition, includes the globally resonating content from the English language version (redubbed by Germany’s leading voice artists), with new topical local sketches (written by German comedy writers) – all filmed in the UK-based Spitting Image studio as close to transmission to ensure maximum topicality.
Elsewhere the debut drew the second-best channel audience figure in Finland for its time slot and was hailed by the leading Finnish newspaper as being, “As vicious and risqué as before” and successfully launched in Belgium with a 22% of total TV audience share, the show is a leading title for BritBox Australia, as well as seeing millions of views in the USA via YouTube.
Spitting Image Live will be produced by Avalon.
Picture: Mark Harrison/Avalon
