Spitting Image, the controversial satirical puppet show that first aired in 1984, has returned for a brand new series.
In the 1980s when Britain was rife with social conflict, Spitting Image presented public figures as grossly violent caricatures – like watching the week’s news re-told by Horrible Histories.
Back then the style hit home, but will it work for a nation still in the grip of a pandemic?
Home Secretary Priti Patel is cast as a demented vampire, while Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab appears as a karate expert who thinks the country is ‘going to shit’; Dominic Cummings is an alien who snacks on earthlings, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is time-warped as a dope-smoking student.
The entire show is about as balanced as a three-legged elephant on a tightrope. Which wouldn’t be a problem if the jokes were good enough. Sadly, I don’t think they are.
Previously, Spitting Image wouldn’t have cared about political correctness; now the producers may be walking an impossible line between being hard hitting and not being offensive.
Or perhaps it’s the impossibility of satire when public life is already a caricature of itself. Seriously, how can you exaggerate Donald Trump?
Will the new Spitting Image manage to hit today’s targets? Time will tell.
