Is political satire dead? No. It’s just been temporarily eclipsed by satirical politics. And honestly, has there ever been a more satirical politician than Rishi Sunak? He is a natural, and we have been fortunate witnesses indeed to this brief yet dazzling masterclass.
For decades, a slow-motion metaphysical event has been crunching politics and satire together to form a super-dense singularity. It is reminiscent of an ingenious theory within Flann O’Brien’s 1940 surrealist novel, The Third Policeman. If everything is composed of small particles whizzing around, objects bumping into each other often enough would exchange atoms. In the book, people rattling along uneven roads inevitably exchange atoms with their bicycles. The bikes become more human; cyclists become more bike-like, spending silent hours at a time propped with one elbow against a wall.
Satire and politics have likewise undergone an atomic exchange. Comedy has become more political. Politics, meanwhile, has become more comical. Politicians still do standup: tight bit of local at the top, then into anything from Jonathan Gullis’s end-of-the-pier dog-whistle banter to the Stewart Lee-inspired abstract triangulations of Jeremy Corbyn. But satirical politics goes further. Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David’s comedy of manners, may have ended, but it has emboldened a new generation of politicians revolutionising their craft with character-driven improv. Sunak, in his performance as prime minister, has triumphed with a similarly fictionalised, cringe-making version of himself.
The season started slowly, in the dying days of Partygate. Sunak’s most memorable arc until then had been as “chancellor of the exchequer”, a darkly comic role that saw him cheerfully engaging with coronavirus as a grinning waiter, in a scheme to rescue the hospitality sector called “eat out to catch it”. He later showed emotional range with his poignant contrition at getting a fixed-penalty fine for breaking Covid rules.
Clearly his model here was the “successful failure” character played to great effect in the 1950s and 60s by the slapstick comedian Norman Wisdom. His satirical politics owes much to Wisdom’s “trip and stumble” vibe and his two trademark emotional states: the roaring laugh, the self-pitying whine. Bit by bit, Sunak elevated “hapless” into new, catastrophic levels of satire. He was utterly convincing in routines such as Petrol Station (tapping his credit card on a can of Coke) and You’re Nicked (gabbling a piece to camera in a moving car while not wearing a seatbelt, allowing Lancashire police to see the clip on social media and issue yet another fine).
Everyone’s still talking about that episode last month when he announced the general election. Everybody could see it was raining, all the journalists were right there, under big umbrellas. A dry, soundproof media room was a minute away. But he took the high comedy road, timing his arrival at the lectern to just ahead of the next shower. It absolutely pissed down as he delivered a hilariously low-key speech, drowned out and soaked through. He might as well have been crooning Wisdom’s mopey signature song, Don’t Laugh at Me (’Cause I’m a Fool). Not once during the whole bit did he break character. What class, what a pro, effortlessly outperforming both the panto slapstick of Ed Davey and Keir Starmer’s tedious recitations.
Sunak pushed credibility to the limit, the tone set with a visit to Belfast’s Titanic Quarter – “Mr Sunak, you’re 20 points behind the iceberg, any comment?” Then his deftly awkward encounter with Welsh football fans – “So I guess you guys are looking forward to the footie. Oi oi, there’s lovely. Not now, Nerissa, I’m talking bloody sport with these Taffy bastards, ha ha …” And his relatable comments on the cost of living crisis – “Tell me about it, we get this ancient grain super-seedy boule from a little Bethnal Green bakery and it’s shot up to like I don’t know, 30 quid? Brutal.”
But the framed masterpiece of those early election days was the The Aeroplane. Sunak’s in the aisle of a small plane: the lighting’s superb, the composition’s beautiful, he looks good in his trademark slim-fit shirt. Excellent, except above his right shoulder – an EXIT sign, wider than his head. Tory central office approved the release of the shot: were they incompetent, or too arrogant to care? Or did his comms team just really, really hate him? None of these explanations quite works. The clue is in Sunak’s face. He knows the sign is there, his look says he knows that we know it’s there. He’s so confident of his satirical craft that he’s letting us in, for a moment only, on the joke. Surely.
The D-day thing felt risky though, didn’t it? A bit “big”? Ducking out of a campaign-boosting photo op with allied heads of state. Drawing global condemnation, even from within his own party, for what? To nip home for a pre-record with ITV. It seemed like the dead end of a satirical storyline. No punchline. Ah, but wait, of course. He’s upended fate all over himself, for satire. For politics. The interview he rushed back for, and every subsequent interview, will basically be drowned out by people at home shouting over it, “Why do you hate our fallen heroes, Mr Sunak? Are you a FUCKING LIAR, Mr Sunak?”
He’s Mr Bean. He’s Michael Crawford in Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em. He’s Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther. Like everyone else, I can’t wait to see what satirical-political car crash he has lined up for the finale. Maybe there will be a nationwide power blackout just as the polls close on election night. We will discover that for the past two years Downing Street has been paying protection money to a gang of Russian cyberterrorists who have hacked into the National Grid. Sunak is on his way out, not his problem now.
Nor is anything. Why should he care any more? My money’s on his official resignation at Alton Towers, coming down the log flume inside the carcass of a polar bear.
Ian Martin is a comedy writer whose credits include The Thick of It and Veep. His latest book, So You Think You Can Be Prime Minister, is published in September
Guardian Newsroom: Election results special: Friday 5 July, 7.30pm-9pm BST, join Gaby Hinsliff, John Crace, Polly Tonybee, Jonathan Freedland and Zoe Williams for unrivalled analysis of the general election results. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live
