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really don’t we? No. They’re not harmless fun; they’re
slapdash trash. H is not a lovable scamp: he’s a blank
eyed glove puppet with half the charisma of a discarded
ping-pong bat rotating slowly in a pig trough full of
rainwater. This represents untertainment at its finest
and will be warmly welcome by anyone who regularly
sits in front of the box with a loaded shotgun in their
mouth, trying to pluck up the courage.”
And, more obscurely, on finding a DVD boxed
set of Planet Of The Apes with Charlton Heston disconsolate
before the Statue of Liberty on the cover:
“What next? A special edition of Seven in a commemorative
case mocked up to resemble Gwynneth
Paltrow’s severed head?”
Childish? Yes. Hilarious? Well I think so. If it was all
fantasy disembowelling of nob-ends in colourful language
Brooker could be dismissed as a one-trick pony,
even if that trick is astonishingly amusing. But there’s a
real vision at work here; stinging, jaded eyes surveying
a Boschean hellscape of demonic coke-crazed execs
ladling poisonous gruel down the mouths of uncomplaining
dribble-mouthed buffoons.
And yet for all the apparent misanthropy there’s a
cornered and bruised altruism at work here too. Brooker
recently wrote Nathan Barley with the immortal
Chris Morris (the best thing on telly despite what the
nay-sayers nay-say) but while the latter is the greater
comedic and satirical talent (not just of Brooker, but
BUY Charlie Brooker books online from and
of everyone) Brooker actually has a humanity about
him seemingly absent in our latter-day Swift. For all
his violent imagery, a longstanding vein in his work is a
contempt for the kind of sniggering nihilists who watch
genuine suffering for kicks. This can perhaps be seen
best in his dissection of some feeble ‘comedy awards’
programme door-stepping Les Dennis about his breakup
with his wife:
“Perhaps I’m a wuss but I think harassing the
heartbroken for funnies is disgraceful. Clearly the
producer, Dan Clapton, believes that human suffering
equals big guffaws, so if anyone has any first-hand
accounts of him having his heart broken, send me the
juicy details and I’ll reprint them here so we can have
a good hearty ho-ho together. After all, it’s just a bit of
fun, right Dan? Right?”
Of course it helps that I agree with most of what
he says but even when describing his affection for
David Dickinson (ugh!), Monarch Of The Glen (gah!)
and, worst of all Friends (arrrggghhhhhhhhh!) he’s
still funny. I dare say he’d have a few words to say
about my soft spot for Judge John Deed too. We’re
all entitled to like some shite in our lives. Indeed,
it’s Brooker’s recognition of this, the simultaneous
fascination and revulsion he has for the likes of Pop
Idol and Big Brother that makes it very far from some
highbrow denunciation of TV as a whole. This is a
guy who loves the possibilities of what television has
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