Reacting to Charlie Brooker
After I reacted to Philomena Cunk, people kept telling me to watch Charlie Brooker. At that point, I mainly knew him as someone who’d helped develop Cunk and as the brain behind Black Mirror. I’d never actually seen Black Mirror, so there was plenty for me to learn.
I started with his 2016 review because that was my first full year in Britain. I moved here from Canada just before Christmas in 2015, and I was here for the Brexit vote. Watching it back felt like looking at something from a lifetime ago, even before we got to the 2020 clips.
A puddle was enough to win me over
Among the events in the 2016 review was footage of people trying to get past a big puddle in Newcastle. The clip described how this everyday obstacle had become an online sensation, with people watching pedestrians work out a way around it. That’s the whole attraction. People and a puddle.
There was something so utterly British about it to me. Of all the things that could go viral, watching strangers navigate some standing water felt like peak British humour. I love this place. Brooker’s version then turned the excitement into an absurd proposal for more puddle-based television.
Cunk appeared in a section about David Bowie, delivering a completely ridiculous account of him as a pop star and a spaceman who discovered spiders on Mars. That is a joke, obviously, rather than a biography. I’d already enjoyed her character, and seeing her turn up here gave me another bit of exactly the sense of humour I love.
The politics felt familiar, however long ago it seemed
The review moved on to the referendum campaign, with Brooker putting political appearances through the same sarcastic treatment. He made fun of the supposed enthusiasm on the Remain side, then turned to the Leave campaign and the bus with its NHS funding claim printed along the side. I remembered that bus.
These were comedy clips assembled around the news, including jokes about campaign promises and politicians’ appearances. I wasn’t doing a new breakdown of the referendum. I was revisiting a year I’d actually lived through here, and by this point I could have happily watched the entire programme. I love this sort of humour.
There were things I’d forgotten too. When the review reached the recording of Donald Trump talking to Billy Bush, I realised I hadn’t thought about that clip in a while. Brooker’s sarcastic commentary on the response to it was very good. The 2016 material gave me plenty to watch without needing to move straight on to Black Mirror.
Six years is a long time to keep a lie going
I also watched part of Brooker’s appearance on Would I Lie to You?, where guests tell stories and the other team has to decide whether they’re true. His claim was that he’d spent six years pretending to a girlfriend that he was partially deaf. I thought it could be true, although six years is a very long time.
In his account, he hadn’t been listening while she talked about something important to her. Rather than admit that, he said he was deaf in one ear. The other guests questioned him about the explanation and how he’d kept it going, before the story was revealed as true. Diabolical. That was his story, not a misunderstanding from my own life in Britain.
Then 2020 felt like another lifetime
Next came bits of Antiviral Wipe, his 2020 programme. One section stitched together early pandemic statements about handwashing, carrying on as usual and shaking hands, with Brooker responding as if he were trying to follow all the instructions. Honestly, that period felt like a million years ago too.
It also brought back the outdoor clapping for the NHS. I wondered whether it meant anything to the people working in hospitals and other frontline jobs. Did it help when they were facing the virus day after day? I didn’t have an answer. The people doing that work are the ones who can say.
The celebrity singing clips were another very recognisable part of that period. The programme revisited the online group cover of Imagine, which I found so cringy I had a hard time watching it again. Then came famous musicians performing from their homes, and yes, some of those were very luxurious homes.
By the end, I wished these reviews were still something I could watch regularly. I would absolutely watch them. Black Mirror was still a separate question for me, because I hadn’t seen it and it seemed as though it might be a little depressing. But the Wipes had already given me the kind of comedy I enjoy, along with a reminder of how distant two familiar years now felt.
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