British comedy owes quite a lot to the writers Andrew
Marshall and David Renwick. While the most recognisable TV shows by them were
those they wrote on their own – Marshall has “2point4 Children,” “Health &
Efficiency” and “Dad” to his name, while Renwick created “One Foot in the
Grave,” “Jonathan Creek” and “Love Hurts” – they had fifteen years of writing
as a double act on sketch shows “End of Part One,” “There’s a Lot of It About”
and “Alexei Sayle’s Stuff,” while creating satirical sitcoms such as “Hot
Metal,” set inside a newspaper. Their most recognisable work from this time
were first written for their radio series “The Burkiss Way,” often compared
with “The Goon Show,” and reworked for TV: a sketch involving a clueless hi-fi
system buyer was re-enacted on “Not the Nine O’Clock News” (“Do you want
speakers? Do you want rumble filters? Do you want a bag on your head?”), and a
sketch where a “Mastermind” contestant gives the answers to the previous
question was reworked by Renwick, and performed by Ronnie Barker & Ronnie
Corbett.
What may be their greatest achievement, now I have seen it, is
their 1982 sitcom “Whoops Apocalypse,” satirising the leaders of the nuclear
powers that will, probably, kill us all. It is a hard sell – the opening titles
begin with a vision of a destroyed city that could have come from the documentary
series “The World at War,” ending on a woman selling poppy-like remembrance
badges, with the phrase, “Wear Your Mushroom with Pride.”
Fortunately, the comedy is as broad as it is cutting. The
President of the United States is the Reagan-like Johnny Cyclops, obsessed with
his ratings, and is even shot to increase his popularity. His Secretary of
State, a religious fundamentalist, is nicknamed “The Deacon,” with Marshall
& Renwick having no knowledge that Ronald Reagan’s real-life chief was
known as “The Vicar.” Meanwhile, the UK is led by the left-wing politician
Kevin Pork, who believes he is Superman. Soviet Russia’s leader, Dubienkin, is
in fact a series of clones, a new clone coming in once the previous one dies.
In 1982, it would have been hard, even then, to imagine
politics being so chaotic: a nuclear alert is caused by a malfunctioning Space
Invaders arcade cabinet; the deposed Shah of Iran, attempting to find
sanctuary, is shunted between Britain and France over most of the series,
unable to leave a cross-channel ferry, until he is stowed onboard a space
shuttle; the insane Prime Minister is blackmailed by Russia into joining the
Warsaw Pact, leading his foreign secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer to
go mad themselves, becoming Hawkman and Green Lantern; two American captives of
the Russians are aware the US know they are captured because they had a
newspaper delivered with their continental breakfast, meaning they will have no
choice of jam until after they make a confession; a counter-revolution by Iran
is discovered by Russia after the Shah’s pet parrot; and events are reported at
all hours of the day by dramatic US newsreaders, CNN having only began in 1980.
“Whoops Apocalypse” is a
brilliantly-written show - a favourite line, even though it is also from
"The Burkiss Way," was of how an admirer of Frank Sinatra sold a lock
of his hair back to the singer for an undisclosed sum. The show's bite still
holds up even now, although the story it tells is rooted firmly in the early
1980s, before the conversation over nuclear weapons became, well, deathly
serious, and before the seminal dramas “The Day After” and “Threads” were made.
For that reason, the remaking of “Whoops Apocalypse” as a film in 1986,
released in the US in 1988, suffers in comparison with the TV original – with
the urgency dissipating from the situation, and almost gone by the end of the
decade, lampooning leaders didn’t feel like enough, and replacing Iran with a
Falkland Islands-like conflict was an obvious step. Still, it has Rik Mayall as the leader of a too-gung-ho SAS unit...
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