There's a new series of the sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Sound on Radio 4. A sketch show is a bit like an album (remember those?) - there are stand-out tracks and some fillers and if one out of three is excellent, one good and one falls flat that's a reasonable average but Mitchell and Webb's sketches are almost uniformly brilliant, from the first, in which stone age chippers are retrained for the bronze age to the seventeenth, in which a world-destroying alien invasion is reported on a news programme with requests for opinions from listeners "maybe you live on earth or know someone who does."
Their show seems to be the necessary jester, the one who tells the monarch that he is but mortal at the court of King Democracy or King You, as it is now called. We, the people, are surrounded by courtiers, whether they are politicians who laud us for our good sense and wisdom, phone in competitions who need, in fact are ready to die for, our costly vote and flattering advertisers who praise our superior taste and discernment. We, the credulous, need to have the piss taken out of us. So in a talk back show the comedians beg the listeners to email or call with any thoughts or opinions or even squeaky noises. "Ignorance should not be a bar. You may not know anything about the issue but I bet you reckon something." And the new woman's magazine called Buy Me!, for the woman who lives and loves and loves to live and lives to love, and has everything, the greedy cow and with sex tips to please your man passed off as feminine empowerment.
Oh, and football supporters get a good ribbing as well, for acting as if each goal on their side was kicked by their own feet. I look forward to their take on bloggers.
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