Can it ever be legitimate – possible even – to make comedy out of the world’s most appalling tragedies? A sitcom to be called Hungry, based on the Irish great famine (in which 1 million people died and another million were forced to emigrate in what some regard as an example of genocide), has been commissioned by Channel […]
Posts under ‘Media’
From the Holocaust to the Irish famine: can you make comedy out of genocide?
Jan 4th, 2015 by Jon Lansman.
Russell Brand v the Sun: long may the war continue
Dec 6th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.When I was poor and I complained about inequality, people said I was bitter. Now I’m rich and I complain about inequality, they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think they just don’t want inequality on the agenda because it is a real problem that needs to be addressed.” Normally something to pin on […]
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The paedophile next door – moving beyond condemnation?
Nov 26th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Are we living at peak paedophile? No, we passed that a few years ago. But we do live in a culture saturated by paedophile panic. You’re practically not allowed to have contact with kids unless cleared by the Disclosure and Barring Service. Nary a day goes by without a paedophile somewhere getting banged up. We’ve had dear […]
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What #WebackEd means
Nov 10th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Tens of thousands of people pouring out onto that there Twitter showing support for Ed Miliband? What has the world come to? Stranger things have happened, just not that often. And so it came to pass that for the best part of 24 hours, #webackEd trended on Twitter. It still is at the time of […]
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Plots and rumours of plots
Nov 9th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Even the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday is sometimes forced to print the truth. But this morning’s front page was not one of those occasions. Apparently, Tristram Hunt “plunges in the dagger” and has joined the much-trailed revolt of Labour MPs. Except he hasn’t. If you read behind the headline he “revealed his doubts in private […]
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Russell Brand, Narcissist and Comrade?
Oct 27th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.I’ve always had a soft spot for Russell Brand. Like many recovering Big Brother fans, I first encountered him on E4’s E-Forum, a side programme to Big Brother’s Little Brother, which in turn was an adjunct to the main event. But there was something about Brand that made him stand out even in those days. […]
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Ignore the special pleading of millionaires against mansion tax
Oct 8th, 2014 by Jon Lansman.We never have had much time for the knocking copy regularly provided by a bunch of has-beens who never backed Ed Miliband in the first place. When things get tough, you can guarantee that they’ll parade their disloyalty through the newsrooms and TV studios. And so it was this weekend that the first pair of traitors – Lords Levy and Noon took […]
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Tory sleaze…. don’t ya jes’ love it?
Sep 29th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.I love Tory sleaze, and no one does sex scandal quite like the Conservatives. Can you remember the ’90s, the decade where John Major urged his party to get “back to basics“? Alan Clark, Steven Norris, Jeffrey Archer, David Mellor, Stephen Milligan. A roll call of Carry On farce and sexual tragedy if there ever was […]
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Convince me, Ed, by convincing Josephine and Xiomara
Sep 26th, 2014 by David Osland.Labour could elect a leader equipped with movie star sex appeal, a double first in applied astrophysics, Churchillian oratory, the ability to juggle three flaming torches simultaneously and serious talent as a hard bop tenor saxophonist. And still the first thing the Tory media would say about her is that she was ‘unconvincing’. Such is the […]
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To catch people like Rebekah Brooks & Bob Diamond we need strict liability
Aug 18th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.In her memo to her own staff over the hacking scandal Rebekah Brooks wrote “We were all appalled and shocked when we heard about these allegations yesterday………I have to tell you that I am sickened that these events are alleged to have happened…………..Not just because I was editor of the News of the World at […]
