Dead Funny

A generation ago I used to write scripts and storylines for the television show, Spitting Image. If you’re too young to remember the show, I won’t trouble you with a lengthy synopsis here as there is plenty of information available through a click or two on Google, and there are hundreds of clips on YouTube.

The question I am asked most often in terms of the work I have done in the past is, “Will Spitting Image ever return?”

(I know there was a wobbly version released on BritBox last year, but that doesn’t count)

My answer has always been ‘no’ due to two counts:

Firstly, there is the question of expense. Even back in the 1980s, each episode cost upwards of a whopping quarter of a million pounds — heaven knows how much that would translate to today, but a substantial fortune, for sure. These days, television audiences are more fragmented and it is very unlikely that we would attract anything like the audience numbers from the early seasons of the show, that might justify the expense in terms of the advertising revenue such figures would pull in.

Secondly, I wasn’t alone, as the show faded away, in believing that we had taken Spitting Image as far as we could. By the time we reached the 1990s, political figures were becoming ever blander and characterless. John Major wasn’t the only grey politician; we made him a symbol of the crop of dull Westminster figures of the day, but his tepid, vanilla persona was echoed by so many of his colleagues that there just wasn’t any fun to had by depicting the lot of them as the corporate, soul-less dimwits they appeared to be.

The question that meandered into my thoughts today was, if we were just starting out, would we make Spitting Image at all, and if we did, would it ever make it to air?

On Spitting Image we deflated the puffed up (we had Prince Andrew sussed out even back then), we pursued the vain, and we mocked vainglorious dictators. It is that latter group that bring my question into mind.

We introduced Ayatollah Khomeini, Colonel Gaddafi, and Saddam Hussein as characters who appeared in portrayals of the topical stories of the week. These were not flattering depictions. Rather cruelly, perhaps, we shaped the birthmark on Mikhail Gorbachev’s head into a hammer and sickle.

Complaints used to tumble in to the production office, but they were almost exclusively from offended Christians, or supporters of the royal family.

What would happen today?

Would we dare write satirical sketches about world figures and religious icons if Spitting Image was to be broadcast for the very first time this week?

Would ITV even commission such a show, let alone broadcast it? Would it be enough to run a ‘This programme contains material that some may find offensive’ warning prior to the show going on air?

The reality is this — I believe any writer asked, today, to write sketches or humour based on religious issues would sit looking at their blank Word document on their screen and wonder if it really is worth it.

Yet that reality only covers half the story for me. I regret some (some, not all) of the pieces that were broadcast under the Spitting Image banner. I’m not convinced, with hindsight, that we were always making a genuine political point or hitting back against tyranny or injustice. Sometimes we depicted people rather hurtfully for no particular cause.

I mentioned those complaints that arrived from angry Christians. Maybe they had a point. Perhaps it was, at best distasteful, at worst mocking their beliefs, if their God was portrayed in what they perceived as a disrespectful manner.

Of course, nobody turned up at the studios armed with guns or bombs.

There is a terrifically difficult line to tread (who makes the judgement?) when making fun of anyone, be they human or a deity. However, even if the judgement is seen to be wrong by a sizeable number of any community or religion, that should be a starting point for debate, not a call to arms.

Would we make Spitting Image today, complete with puppets of religious icons from around the world? Would we write scripts poking fun at them?

I believe we would not. It’s a matter of life and death, and life is better than death.