John Oliver on the writers’ strike: ‘Furious that it took the studios 148 days to achieve a deal’

John Oliver: ‘The Writers Guild went on strike and thankfully won, but it took a lot of sacrifices from a lot of people to achieve that.’ Photograph: Max

For the first time since April, John Oliver returned to Last Week Tonight on Sunday evening with five months’ worth of recapped news and harsh words for the studios who only reached a deal with the Writers Guild of America last week.

“I’d have loved to have covered all of these stories back when they originally happened,” Oliver said after blistering through old headlines such as Donald Trump’s mugshot, King Charles’s coronation and the Titan submersible disaster. “I wish so much I could have told you these jokes at the time, but I couldn’t because our writers, the people who wrote those jokes, were forced to strike for a fair contract for the last five months.”