Armando Iannucci | Full Q&A | Oxford Union

[Music] [Music] right well thanks for being here pleasure this is rather imposing Phil I've come for an interview a job interview you can sit on you can sit on the table if you and I had people do all sorts of promotions in the ocean yeah yeah well thanks for a budget today and glad you could make it over so I suppose lots of the audience here best know you for the thick of it and it's probably you know the yes minister of our generation what was it that initially got you into into writing this what gave you that idea something that people would like and it was sort of it was the huge sort of invasion of Iraq which was always going to be funny it was it was I just you know I was obsessing about how his administration as a twirl worked and it seemed to be very concerned with timetabling and announcing things and then announcing them again and the whole he brought in this whole culture of spin and you know Alastair Campbell had the grid system where every day they would try to work out in advance what was going to happen and that day you're not forgetting that actually in real life we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow you know there's no way of knowing and things turn up the thing you know Harold Macmillan had that phrase events dear boy events and events gotten away and so they would then be this mad scramble to make their announcement fit what was actually really going on which was more important than what they were announcing and then their attempt whenever something bad happened to try and Klein correct it but they corrected in such an obvious way that it made it worse and I just thought that was that there was a naturally funny dynamic to that so there was that and then I also did think you know the decision to invade Rach how did that come about how did someone just by sheer din of his personality and his will and his belief persuade not just his close circle but the cabinet and then Parliament and then indeed the electorate that this was that this was a valid decision to make so then you know that started raising questions about well how is our democracy working now that actually every expert in the land is saying this will be a terrible mess is being ignored and and and yet one person by just in of that charisma or leadership or whatever is able to corral a whole country into introducer so that was it I mean a serious answer but it's is that fundamentally way and then I thought well let's make that funny that's the other thing you know so last year I think you wrote that you wouldn't write the the thick of it now and I felt too low politicians are being so far from what they actually are that there isn't really you know lots to laugh about with them because well yes it was more yet the advent of like Trump I think and and it just seems that politics now is going through a phase where I do worry that if you try and turn someone like Trump into a comedy character he becomes a kind of plaything and he stops being dangerous you know he starts becoming acceptable he starts becoming a fluffy funny stupid idiot rather than someone who is the most powerful man in the world and who has got access to the nuclear codes and is deeply unstable I mean that's the truth of it that you know today he's just fired the FBI director you know he's done in 108 days what it took Richard Nixon about six years to do in terms of having people having to resign shutting firing you know having queries you know he's got there rapidly he's almost like a scandal prodigy really he's a solo dinner it's kind of a hyper scanner over scandal really in there is a concentrated bowl of of scandal that just is just going to go off at any second so what do you think is the most effective way of you know critiquing to a mass audience people like this if it isn't 3sat are is it well I think it's a tie screw throw to so what happening is you know normally in SATA you take something that is true and then you bend it and twist it and exaggerate it so it becomes ridiculous but that's what Trump does in every sentence you speak so you know when he starts a sentence the first three words are fine they're absolutely fine and then but it's as he keeps going it can a warned as off and doubles back itself and then it turns into a half sentence he speaks in about five sentences of one so he'll do it kind of you China is the marketplace I see you and by the way by the way I sell it I dunno so there's five centers going on at one and he's a Craig you know it's crazy grammar punctuation so so he satirizes himself he's a sort of self-basting satirist right and then so the I think the real satirist are kind of hitting home are the one to do the flip side of that and okay you're doing the jokes will do the facts so you John Oliver's and your daily shows and Samantha bee and Bill Maher and you know a little bit of the onion and things like that just actually good okay you're crazy let's actually see let's actually dig out what you said two years ago or what some of you who you've now put in a position of authority in your administration did three years ago and let's make fun of that let's let's explore the differences between what you said there and what you're doing now that's that's where I think satire is beginning to find its way of approaching Trump having said that there's a really silly thing called sassy Trump on YouTube I don't you know piece of Sarah vinovich you know the actor pitiful for voice and so and all he does he doesn't sing on YouTube called sassy Trump which is he just reavoice 'iz proudly doesn't change what club says but he just reverses because Tom does these kind of gestures like this yeah and but he's trying to project this alpha male image so Peter just revised them so actually you sort of speaks like that you know and I tell you that China ah you know and by the way we've huge misael you know and it really just sucks all the machismo out of them at but the interesting thing is it then makes you genuinely listen to what Trump is saying you know because you're not thrown away by the kind of projected kind of character that he's trying to project and you start then you start realizing how troubling this guy is previously lots of writers of you know satire sketches would and sitcoms would set out to offend you know to outrage people do you think it's hard becoming harder to write that sort of satire today when you know corporations and producers are afraid of offending fees yeah people are afraid of rent and I always said about that you know nothing is off-limits but if you're writing about it you have to have a line of thought clear line of thought or an argument or or some wit I don't like comedy that is set calls itself offensive and all it is is just offending Jeremy and there's no comedy behind it they just think to say a terrible thing is is all that is required III kind of feel you've got to have some set of constraints if only to try and break those constraints because I think it makes you work harder I think what's happening though is and it does worry me is that people equate offense with injury and I actually think I do actually think what's wrong with being offended you know if you have a set of religious or political beliefs and if somebody says something against them those beliefs if you really believe them you should have a strong enough belief in them to be able to withstand that attack if you see it as an attack rather than and what is happening a lot I think it's just the shutting down of the argument so if somebody says something we block them we unfollow them we non platform them you know because and what that means is we don't engage with them so we then end up with to dine at do two groups of people who will not meet halfway will not even contemplate the idea of having a conversation and that's why I haven't I think over brexit in that you have the remain camp and the brexit camp who still act as if we're having still having the debate and the other side are our opponent so you have and they also take out pausing because they you know the brexit people still act as if they lost in that they call anyone else who disagrees with them a traitor disloyal attacking the country the remain camp still act as if they won or if they didn't win is because we misread the result but we'll sort it out because we did win I mean because we are us and you know and it's fixed perfect sense I don't quite see how this result came about so let's look at the rules again I think we got it at something go wrong so you know you seen changed in these camps and therefore there's no conversation going on between them and that's that's the thing that worries me that we kind of become frightened of wanting to engage in in any kind of debate with someone who might radically disagree with us you know when do you think this is going to end you know with the upcoming general election this is still a big undercurrent well you're the thing election is there's no debate that's the problem so either Mabel not debate Jeremy Corbyn will not debate if Teresa Mays not debating they'll go on the one show although you know so in the end the debate we got so far has been Frieza made debating her husband that's the debate we've had so far that's eight and and all the events that been staged have been staged managed so that reporters are having to tell in advance the questions that they're going to ask so that the party managers can decide which questions you know so it's all being staged managed and yet the whole point of this election which we've got to remind ourselves we didn't have to have the whole point of this election we saw that the country can have a debate about brexit about the terms for Europe and yet debate is stymied so that's that and I just think it's getting worse and worse the fewer I mean in a general election you know now hopefully in the next four weeks is to change generation you may discuss everything you're meant to discuss housing education health welfare tax everything that's the point of a general election it's not about give me a strong mandate to go into Europe I don't think when Theresa May goes into Europe people the other 27 countries are going to go oh my god she got a lot of people to vote from what are we going to do you know and I also think it's actually quite it's a con it's a con to say only a vote for me is a vote for our country because that's how one party states arrived the fact that to vote for someone else is somehow disloyal is undermining the country that you know that so dictatorship I don't think Therese amis a dictatorship but her language and her argument is extremely lazy and extremely dangerous do you feel the press are letting electorate down do you think they should be you know complying and sending their questions through for pre-screening do you know there's all these shores when was the bulk of it more Isis very you know to resume leaning I don't know what you do about that but I think it's up to us to somehow you know campaign for a little bit more of discussion going on and that's why I spent a lot of time at the moment trying to persuade you lot to register and to vote even if you don't you know I don't care how you vote but you know if you don't vote it that the the 18 to 24 year old vote has been going down repeatedly in past elections and what that means is politicians don't regard you as a threat if you're not going to volt great we can take money from you when we have to make cuts will pair up tuition fees but withdraw a student disability been allowance will will will will say that the living relate wage doesn't kick in till you're 25 you know because if you feel upset about that the chances are you won't vote so that's fine and that's what labor Lib Damon Tory politicians have done over the last 20 years so you know if you want to have a little bit more power register and say you're gonna vote you know if you end up saying none of the above I don't really care if it's you know a pair of balls and a or whatever I don't you know dick up to you up to you we find if they got in their balls and a 259 generally because the politicians will astray last week talking about the triple lock and pensions and they've been doing that because what the over 65 volt is about 75 80 percent so they know that the the older volt is something that they have to go out and win so what can you say to young voters who choose not to register they say you know I don't see anything that I agree with here all the three major political parties other yeah and I can absolutely understand that and and which is why I'm saying you know what spoil your pay for them because if you actually withdraw from the debate if you don't vote you're actually withdrawing from democracy and we end up with a smaller and smaller pool of people who are voting and yet that's not affecting how politics works because you know no matter how few votes a party gets if it's more than the other lot they get total power and a party with total power is not going to go yeah but we didn't get many votes you know comparatively in comparison with governments of twenty years ago so what will tone it down a bit no they have total power so if you want to affect how power is practiced you have to participate in in the election in one way or another and so there are lots of tools out there and with pollsters predicting you know in large taurima drawers yeah do you think they should go out there on to these websites and vote tactically you know well there are lots of websites on so it depends what it is you're after you know if you want to vote for a brexit candidate or a remain candidate or if you want to vote for a candidate who's best place to maybe not let a conservative in that's that's you that yeah but there are there are there is information out there as to how you can go about and find out how that affects your constituency I'm really not saying I'm not telling you how to vote and just want you to vote I just want the the you know the 18 to 24 year old Volk to go up in this election because it then means that next election politicians going to be a lot more careful about how they treat that constituency sure that makes less seriousness I saw this appear absolute is just talked about constitutional kind of implications of that we've talked about basically fascism for the last 25 minute I like the quote yeah I'm sure let's speak our series art as I am oh yeah it's fine sounds quite happy too well I think lots of people did come here to and hear you talk about you know the thick of it yeah let's go back to that we were chatting earlier you said you've been you know hoppy across the pond quite a lot yes and obviously you know you're working on the projects there what do you think are the differences writing for these two audiences do you find a difference when you're writing for the relevant more I mean what we didn't decide to do was completely replicate the thick of it you know just change the names and so on because you know in the thick of it it's a very junior minister with very little influence being bullied basically by number ten and the people from number ten who are all called enforces that's the actual frame Malcolm they're all these rather anonymous that sound like the Dementors really but they go out they go out among the department and tell them what to say what not to say how much money they've got what to think what to believe and then off and then so there's act but in veep it's really in sin the white house and you know if someone like Malcolm sport like that to the vice-president he'd be shot you know he'd be removed from the bill building and bundled into the back of a car and take it away you just don't do that because you forget in America the president is the head of state not just an elected politician your lightning tall politicians by the way in America politicians don't like it you've got a column congressman or senator or or whatever they don't the idea that there are politicians somehow a demeaning phrase that doesn't represent who they are they relish that status that they have and there is an element in America of you respect the office is not person you know you might not agree with Trump but you respect the office of the president you have to show deference in terms of the ceremony and go on there so it's a very different and also you know the decisions they make do have an impact do reflect across the country do have an impact on people's lives and and across the world you know if if Trump withdraws from the Paris climate agreement it will have an impact internationally so that's what veep is about is about and also the funny dynamic there I think is is being vice-president being close to power but not being in power being right next door to power but one day you could have the power and that was the old I spoke to when we were researching the show I spoke to the chief of staff for both Al Gore and Joe Biden and he said that really America is a country it's all about being number one and being vice president you might as well wander around with a badge saying I came second and and vice president's when they come into a room are treated with respect but they know when we leave the room people are laughing at them and that's just part of the job that's just the status they have so I thought that was a kind of funny and also the power you have as a vice president is really in the end the gift of the president so the president wants you to be a powerful vice president then you can be so Dick Cheney was and Mike Pence's if he wants you to be a nonentity you can you will be like Dan Quayle was under George Bush Senior sure okay so one one then you know the thick of it you had lots of politicians lobbyists civil servants coming up to you and say you know I recognize this oh yeah yeah it's only you know things were as good as they were in the yeah do you have the same in the states do you have not as an element of that things happen know you well the worst bit is when you write a fiction and you make it as stupid as possible and then somebody afterwards says how did you find that out because have that really quiet and we find it keeps happening in in the very first episode of the thick of it they have to come up with a chief policy in the back of the car on the way to mission announcement because Malcolm's pulled all the funding from the one they wanted to know so they're the you know the swapping idea is something that's popular and cheap hanging should we bring back hang no you know and what happened was we were still in the car we'd shot the scene but was still in the car on the way to the next location so I said Luke just mix stuff up see what happens make stuff up so this was Chris Addison and you know ever and and genuinely in the scene three of those policies that he improvised within the next four years became law they were it was a antisocial as balls for pets basically as well compulsory for everyone to have their own plastic bag and a national spare-room database which became became bedlam taxes you know and he's just and I've had I've had senior political figures come up to me and say I've been in the back of that car and similarly in America we did when Selina Meyer was campaigning for president we thought we'd give her a campaign slogan that was like then nothing it wasn't you couldn't you know it wasn't in any way interesting it was the blandest made no set is cold and and it was them it was continuity with change was right and any any Australians here any had straight yet so Malcolm Turnbull which Primus a year later not even a year later used that as his campaign slogan and and he was cast he used continuity and change and he was castigated by and his office replied are no it's different because in veep its continuity with change our campaign so his continuity and change so we're actually giving you two things we are actually you know it's a positive it's a positive you know so that happened I mean there's another one reset of time to think we'll eyes I mean they it goes on and you try to think you try not to be depressed by how easily that happens but it but it happens continually an ongoing theme is you know these are overlords or these controllers trying to keep their ministers you know check do you do you think that's still the case today or ministers and politicians more able to go out there and do their own thing well I think in sort response to the Blair kind of absolute control freak area I think they try to every year they promise that they're going to reduce the number of special advisers and every year it goes up because every minister goes yeah yeah no generally as an idea in principle that fight but I think I need I think my department in particular does need a few more you know and and that happens and I think the of what they try and avoid is the top the grammar of spin control so you won't have treasom a she does have she had two senior policy advisors that and they do impose complete control on the other departments because what's happened over the last twenty years is that politics in the UK has got very centralized you know a it's got centralized in London and then bees got centralized in the Prime Minister's Office and the Treasury and that dictates what every other department will do so you lose that sense of ministers who have their own little fiefdom and can actually have a bit of personality about themselves you know Blair used to sack anyone who had any personality you know so soon you know you're robbing cooks and you're more moorlands and are they all just disappeared and and then died actually strangely alike I don't know what anyway in years to come one or two of you will be asked to join mi5 at some point you know it will happen and I wouldn't mind you finding out and get back to me why all these politicians end up dying I just said look at boys I once actually give a talk to mi5 about comedy by the way in a room not unlike this and but it was like ends kind of briefing chamber and so because I said on the phone I said I want to play some clips as the DVD player and they did this kind of full can of amateur is a demon yeah well Russell's coming up and you arrived and it was this big kind of briefing chamber where you just you didn't even touch anything you put your hand over it and the lights went down and then you did that the screen came on an event like that room and I started playing there and it stopped in some of that but it was all civil servants basically who who were in the audience and then there was cheese and wine mi5 cheese and wine afterwards and they had ever mi5 parish notices which was like the bringin by sale last week raised four hundred thousand great ormond street hospital so well done you thought but you must be siphoning like money launderers and their ruin you must be able to get four hundred quid out of that surely for Great Ormond Street Hospital but anyway and that's another thing so yes I don't know what was the question yeah dead dead politicians no I do guarantee there will be at least one or two of you in this room in the next three or four years who will be recruited by mi5 so we'd love you to find out what what what happened why did all these politicians with any personality died right after you retired come back and speak we can never get spooks to come alright yeah yeah you can you should go to that because they do have speaker evenings which is why but they have to do it kind of internally because of what they don't we go on theater trips together and kind of gives Alton Towers and some of that and then it ok then it has speaker evenings yeah and they're all very sheepish afterwards because they were introduced to me as something else and ain't subject talking noise it's a curious yourself and somebody did come on went what happened for your photos really us and I kind of really sort bashful Kellaway like and I say - why you involved Oh terrorism terrorism yeah anyway yeah I'm still kind of mobile the question was yes gone yeah may was it was about politician okay breaking free of there yeah but that's fine yeah at the moment there's you know so much well I suppose amusing but like not so amusing material to write on you it breaks it Trump and everything else are there any projects you're really keen on taking on at the moment something you'd really want to do well you know film I've gotta finish doing a film which will be coming out later this year which is about dictatorship it's called the death of Stalin and it's set in the period when Stalin is ill and then dies and the power struggle in the Kremlin to take over and it's based a lot on a lot of true events but they're kind of funny in a crazily it's about what happens when someone terrorizes a country that you cannot move because if you make the wrong move you will be taken out and shot and what happened was Stalin himself died because of terror because he told his guards he never wanted to be interrupted so when they hear him fall over because he's having a stroke none of them wants to knock on the door and be the first one to go in and fight so he lies not full of his own urine for like a day and then when the politburo turn up no one wants to call for a doctor because earlier in the year Stalin had a lot of senior doctors arrested because he was convinced they were going to poison him so they have a debate about what kind of doctor all the good doctors we learned up so what do we did we got bad joxer but if we get a bad doctor and Stalin finds out yeah but if he finds out is that means you'd survive so it's a good doctor isn't it really and if it is a bad doctor he died then some work by now you know and they didn't use a respirator because it was American and had an American plug on it so they didn't use that you know it's that kind of thing going on so that kind of frenzy in a world of you know hysteria really that's so that's what I finished looking at doing that and it's like Steve Buscemi plays Khrushchev and it's a power struggle between him and Michael Palin is bolotoff and Jeffrey Tambor's is fantastic plays male and cough is the deputy who takes over is it's kind of just kind of the first time I've done a costume double but also first time I've done some anywhere it is funny but it's also something deeply dramatic going on as well behind it cool great that well I think I've asked enough questions now so if we go to the audience okay hope yeah they're not for this yeah yes even sorry your if you can I'll do that yeah also that me from here your I just move this also hi I'll do I'll do casual comedy now yeah so if you have a question just wait for the microphone to get to you first it is a recording microphone it's also recording microphone yes so we're amplify yes you like you are someone over there I'd be a terrible David Dimbleby so there's a person there yeah I never thought about any other creative process at the thick of it the creators are known to live you'll have to speak up to the microphone isn't attached to a speaker it's just there to record you for posterity so and so when you were eventually I recruited to mi5 you'll have the power to delete sorry gone too harsh I think of its one things it's known for those phrases like Omni shambles yeah kind of come from nowhere yeah I wanted to ask how much of that was scripted a lot of that was it sold in front yeah there's a little bit of advisor they interrupt for things just so you don't get skin cancer it can you move slightly out of the Sun okay yeah always to get you on the air is that Alright okay right well I'll go to Iceland Daniella okay well this is much better this is what I'm doing a law lecture this is great yeah no the fitness is a bit young man it's all no it's not there's a little bit of improv but that's really to make it sound like it's spontaneous so I asked the cast to learn the lines but just to see them sliding over each other and slightly just a dirty up to make it sound like conversation because we you know we don't finish our sentence we talk over each other we interrupt each other and I wanted to lose that stage theatrical thing of people very politely waiting till someone's finish their sentence before they then go that's an interesting point but I disagree because it just sounds fake so that but actually all those elaborate swearing phrases are all carefully because I mean Pinkett Capaldi plays Malcolm he has to learn those lines because they have to come out in a great ball of fury and you can't show any hesitation so he does away and learns them and we shoot in a sort of building full of these glass office with glass meeting rooms and Peter would spend the day in a glass meeting room and he's soaked learning the big diatribe so you just see this man just patient no you can't because if I can do it I'll get good idea you know that today yesterday you know because he's got to be able to so a lot of effort goes into crafting those and there's one one of our writers who was very good at it became very early known as the swearing consultant on there on the shot it's not you know it's not he was particularly good at it but that's very correspondent that's so funny the news had a swearing colonising you join a you just the strikes in its fifth day and there's no way this is going to get cleared up yes so it's not scripted but then the whole the whole element of rehearsing and shooting is about Mickey not feel like it's scripted that actually so if you think it's spontaneous though that's good in that we've achieved our aim of not making it look like this is a you know a dramatic pre-written rehearsed thing it's the Gene Kelly thing of you know dancing you know if it looks like you're working hard you're not working hard enough you've got to work so hard that it looks effortless it's that that's the principle behind it yeah right a question here and just wait for the the microphone that will consign you to all eternity onto the Internet yeah yeah no so you will still have to show that's the thing that is counterintuitive it really is in some that if it feels like sort of left and right or so polarized these places that a lot of satire just feels like it's confirmation bias whichever side it's supporting so a Saturday Night Live sketch which presents from supporters as racists or there is only going to appeal to people who hate Trump yeah and even something like Bill Moe which is normally overalls very liberal yeah and and it just sort of based on facts people say find where are and they disregard it for whatever reason so it's comedy able to bridge that gap it's very difficult to do comedy about moderate politics that's that's the problem so there used to be that the electorate generally were in the middle and you had these fringes so so political comedy was about discovering what was exaggerated and and extreme and know that parties become so polarized that's what I'm saying the dilemma they call them the satirist that's their dilemma what do they do other than just repeat but I also don't think you're then in danger of thinking that by doing political comedy you're somehow gonna change things and I don't think you are I think you you've gone mad very quickly if you think that's what you can do by telling jokes or doing even something like the think of it you can somehow change how people think and how people vote because it just doesn't work like that you know I think at best all you can do is illustrate something that maybe people haven't seen before with you know Yes Minister when Yes Minister first started it really was although it was like a very traditional sitcom it was also a documentary because no one knew how politics worked behind those closed doors in right hole and and there weren't even TV cameras or microphones in the houses of parliament so yes Minister was the first showing on television of of what actually went on behind those closed doors and then when the writer said yes and politicians have actually briefed us on story lines you know pass through things onto us and I think that's all you can do really you all you can do is hope to reflect something of what's genuinely going on or of how politicians are genuinely thinking or of how they make manipulate arguments and logic I don't think you can ever change how people will vote through comedy I think that's mad if you think it's no they're really yeah so I'll get back to you I'll do by bad David oh yeah or from there thank you you now yeah thank you very much damn if you have any advice to the next generation of potential satirist and writers of authority to get into your position where you well I always say to can write as always especially writing probably always write what makes you laugh don't try and write for a different audience that's different to you don't try and write for some forty five-year-old program commissioner for BBC one because you'll end up not writing your best stuff you've got to write where you genuinely find funny because now that's not a guarantee of success there's a guarantee that you will do your best stuff and then I you know and then you've got to keep writing so don't wait for the call don't wait for someone to hear you wrote a blog five year ago a lot of people be talking about it you want to do a TV show you've got to you've got to create your kind of portfolio which is no easier to do because you can pull stuff up online so easier to go out and shoot your own stuff again that's not a guarantee that people will see it but I think the more you make and the more you write the better you'll be because you just learn something I'm still learning every time you make something especially if it's a new thing you'll learn something from it and that then makes the next thing you're right you can bring that that newly acquired knowledge to the next thing you know that's why I'd say right yes no from him to him then and then our woman will do our woman this question has to come from one of us always here but you're almost equally talented predecessor Tom Lehrer horahan decided that he goes back to being a math teacher when he said satire was redundant because they gave Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize that's right yeah can you I'm not suggesting this for a second but can you imagine such a point coming in your life well I did no I mean I mean I did think once they started using the word of the shambles in the House of Commons and started kind of acquiring elements of the thick of it and I remember David Cameron calling Corbin like an episode of the thick of it at questions under I just thought that you can stop now that's enough because you know when think of it started it was really trying to illustrate how wife thought had gone wrong with politics but if no politicians are seeing it's something to aim for then you I think that's the time to stop so in a minor way that's that was a kind of cutoff point for me in terms of thinking that I should do something else because if we carried on like this will then get requests from politicians to turn up in episodes of it because they love it so much you know and and I just didn't want that to happen hand a lot in America we would get requests from governors and Senators and and and a lot of pressure because it's slightly more done over there and and I felt I had to kind of like just say no to that because the moment you do that you're and I'm not saying these people are hateful or despicable I think a lot of them go into politics for the right reasons and a lot of them do the right thing and stand back I just think though you've got to not get so close to these people that you start thinking do you know what I'll be I'll be kinder to that one now because you know he turned out to be nice most people are nice most people are really nice ninety percent of us are nice but I doesn't stop as you know doing the wrong thing or doing something that we could do better and and and some of those thinking is really about pointing that oh it's not about seeing or for god sake don't go into politics clear because you know they're all animals and and have no morals although that I think the most sympathetic people in those shows are the elected politicians actually they feel the most human but it's about trying to point out how what where the system has got to and where it might have slightly come apart and therefore put the onus back on politicians and indeed the elected to do something about it so I said a woman is there a woman is a woman so sad I just I just seen my bad David Dimbleby that's why I do yeah okay and you said that political satirist can't change the way that people might vote yeah but do you think shows like the thick of it and beep are important in engaging people with the Alliance I hope the boring gauge than poopies law but I think III mean oh I didn't know there was no manifesto behind them other than oh I've looked at politics and this is what I found you know what do you think and so part of it is also as asking the viewer if you were that Minister would you do the same because I think I probably would you know I mean if I as I was backed into corner like that and I was had to make up my mind about something I might make the wrong moves and make the wrong decision so it's about showing this huge humanity behind it I do think that we expect our politicians to be perfect we don't like it when they're not perfect we don't like it when they when there's a train crash and one of them's away on holiday well yeah I mean you can't predict what's going to happen when you go on holiday you know I don't like it when we have a go of them because one spent some money on some dog food that he then accidentally claimed back in there expect you know we make these mistakes all the time and if we expect every politician to be a saint then we're not going to have many people applying for the job really you know and as part of it is about can alert people to fact that we put an undue amount of pressure and expectation on on pollard politicians really you know it's partly our fault is that we can't blame them all the time for it right there one on there the one furthest away from me and that right yep I'm going to drop this character no this bad David Dimbleby well thank you so much for joining us but my question relates to the film and television industry generally ah with the growing popularity of streaming platforms yeah first how would you say that has changed the way that content is produced generally and has that affected the way that you produce content in anticipation of the fact that many people will be viewing your work in streaming platforms as opposed to terrestrial television well I think it's changed the fact that we don't you know we now feel a bit annoyed if we have to watch something on a weekly basis you know now that's like starting the whole trend of putting the whole series up it's it's something I fear because I always work to deadlines so when we're just shooting veep you know Episode one screen out we still haven't even written episode 10 you know so the idea of having the whole thing shot before the first one goes oh it's a nightmare i I think the answer to questions nobody knows I mean really nobody knows a lot of really good stuff has been made a lot really expensive to make stuffing made nobody really knows how many people are watching it I mean there's too much stuff in a way too much good stuff that that you can't watch everything that's out there and I at some point something's gonna fall apart you know some organization it's going to crumble because they're just but the thing is nobody knows and it's been like that on the internet for the last 10-15 years if you know how do you make money how do you monetize as you monetize newspapers on the internet nobody knows so it's in this I think is great at the moment because what it's meant is that program makers are suddenly much in demand you know used to be when you make comedy 10-15 years ago really the BBC was the only show in town so you had to meet what the BBC wanted and it because he didn't like it and that was like two or three people you can make it as nowhere else to go and then Channel four and making more comedy now Sky's making more comedy and then suddenly there's Netflix and there's you know suddenly actually because everything is streamable your audience is no longer the UK your audience is potentially the world you know Alan Partridge is now on North Norfolk digital he claims he has a potential audience of six billion or north you know because you know you can access anything from anywhere and what's good about our viewing habits is we don't really care where the show was made you know it could be a German drama or a Scandinavian mystery or a detective as well as an American drama it's forcing people in the British system to so have to partner up with other other outlets to make big-budget things so things like the night manager was a BBC sure but the money for that came from AMC and the BBC does core productions and Skye did core productions with HBO there's going to be a lot more of that but at this moment before it all falls apart and it will fall apart it soon it's quite a good time to be a programme maker because actually you're more in demand because people are these big organizations are hungry for more shows and putting more shows out yeah yeah okay there and then there and then there from from other work that you've written what would you say is your favorite character that you've renamed favorite seemed oh right oh gosh favorite character dinner I mean Alan is like Alan Potter is just he's just always been there you know right from the start he's been there for like 23 years and and he grows as Steve grows you know he gets older as Steve gets older and what we've liked about doing Alan Partridge is that we haven't done him like every year we he comes he sort of rienner he read constitutes himself every four or five years so he's done that kind of radio and then a chat show and then the sitcom and then back on the radio and he's sort of grown with us so whenever Steve and I meet even if we're not doing Alan we still kind of have at the back of our head a little running Alan so we say so what's Alan up to now well I think he's probably you know I've always wanted to do Alan we always imagine Alan at some point doing those guided tours of Norwich on a double-decker bus just goes just through your Kenneth but then I think we were going to do this in the film one version of the film script let me cut it because it didn't quite fit everything else he goes down and actually he sees someone he who he owes money to so he asks the driver to take the tour elsewhere so the end of something some business park but he's still having because the customers I think he's still having to come up with interesting facts about the buildings in the business in the hope that the people might not see no Muriel's money to that's you know so we asked this kind of we've had this kind of alan in our heads for like 23 years so i suppose alan has to be a kind of you know portico and funny scene well I always think Alan is as happiest when he's walking down the motorway with a bag of windscreen washer fluid singing singing Goldfinger I think I think that's when he's out he's happy so I like I like that yeah so yes I said I'd then um source of Alan released I guess other hang add one of my favorite shows of all time of the day-to-day in brass I oh and I'll take credit for one okay um I mean one one thing that I just absolutely adore about it is that it is still so relevant today right by his news hasn't really changed in terms of its form as well now I mean it's that thing of the on the shambles it's like news journalists those who work in graphics now say to me oh yeah we very much modeled the show on the day to day and you think but no but that was like that was a dystopian vision of the future that was that wasn't like yeah yeah and do you lament the fact that news hasn't changed in the last 20 well yeah I do I cuz and it's not just like in terms of the loop but in terms of the the attack it's not it doesn't feel I wel watch a new show now I don't feel I've got the whole picture I really don't and this is why there is a little tiny bit of merit this is why fake news from Trump it's sort of lodging people's consciousness because I think a lot of people think that I mean it's I'm thing in a tiny way because the news these it's an artifice it's when we were researching the day to day the beautiful chris morris myself on a little television news course for the day and we were given this challenge we would give this task which was we had the unedited rushes of an incident it was the bosnian war and incidentally given her like two hours of footage and we had like three hours to come up with a three-minute package television package that had three bits of information in it so we had to edit the footage down write the commentary over it speak it and you know we had three hours to deliver it as if for that evening 6 o'clock news and what I found with like 10 minutes to go I had the pictures for the first fact that I want to put in I had the pictures for the second fact that I wanted I didn't have any pictures for the third fact I want to bring and with the clock ticking what I did was I just struck out the third fact - there were no pictures and that's where I realized that actually news is picture driven and it's it's an editorialized subjective take on what's happened it has to be someone has decided what to go in and what's not to go in and then someone else has decided how high up the agenda it is is that the main story or is it fifth you know so you know in all these things even though they are factually true there is an element of not fakery but off of of artifice about them you know and I think that's why Trump who is I think in a way a genius are just locking into tiny little residual fears that people have that's why he is getting away with this fake news because everyone know has that scent I think when they watch TV shows of it yeah it's interesting but I must just watch something else as well I get I would newspapers I don't feel what I read a newspaper I'm getting the whole story and I you know every day I get the Telegraph and the guarding because I feel I've got to get both I just read one I feel no there's something I can see what you've done there I see how you've pointed that information and and and quietly drop that into me the less of a pro you know so I it's you know it's it's a fascinating I think it's always been that way but now I just worry that news feels a bit battered by the politicians and isn't really fighting back which is why you know the BBC hasn't said no treasom a you must debate you must go on a live debate will have one if you're not going to turn up we'll just have an empty chair what you're going to do no it's not that it's all well coming one show then so you must be busy sorry for the debate you yeah can understand you're busy you're the Prime Minister you'll be busy sorry we just thought we might ask if you did the debate but no clearly you can oh well sorry who you know I just get annoyed with that there we go right oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so I'm a huge fan of veep I just wanted to know if from from the beginning when you wrote the show yeah was it always your intention to have Selina Meyer get so close to the presidency have a small taste of it and then have it ripped away from her after the time no we as I said when we do Episode one we haven't written episode 10 of each series deliberately as each season went on we deliberately kept number 10 the final one of each right towards the end it more by about season 2 I kind of liked at the end of each season slightly painting ourselves into a difficult corner so by season 2 she's told the president isn't going to rerun so she's going to run in and and season three the president resigned so she suddenly becomes the president while campaigning to be President and season four we ended on a tie-break the electoral college you know and then I left and I handed that constitutional dilemma over today whole new team I just ran away and I kind of like that because it just it forces you to think of it harder about the next season when you're taking the current showing you differently in a different direction if I don't on a bit behind in the country I've seen the first couple of episodes but I'm not up to speed on it you're probably I'm sure we would have when when I handed over I did talk to Dave Mandel we met up and I we both agreed that she would in the end lose by the end of season five but that was a but how he got to that place I said it's just up to him because he's got to be in charge and whether but also I think this part of you as part of the British can and we don't do that many episodes and there's a Simpsons program where I where Homer is raising money to fund a seventh episode of his favorite British show you know we don't do that many episodes and doing veep it was like every year was ten you know and it's a year-long process so they'll soon have you done the first season you're back in writing the next season and then the next season so within four years we've done 40 episodes and that I sort of felt 40 was probably enough for me and it needed fresh blood and new people coming in with different ideas yeah we've got time for a few more questions Ivor a few more they've got to be absolutely excellent questions because these are the last question so it's sort of some of their hand up over there and thanks very much I'm glad we got onto TV news broadcasting AHA because I was also like your the other question think about the day to day in brass I and you know your emphasis so far has been that news hasn't changed it hasn't improved hasn't moved on yeah format but what has changed is the political news yes and you did refer to this kind of change from having a broad center ground polarization yeah so the challenge for those anchor people has changed and they're normalizing and trying to stitch together a more of a diverse range yeah and I think that's where they're getting consultant think they're still sticking to that traditional we'll have one person and we'll have the other person and I'll say one thing to that person but I'll then say the opposite to the up you know so you get this kind of mr. Churchill Hitler does have a point there are too many Jews and Gypsies don't you agree you know just that kind of I'll just say what that person said back to that you know and this ping-pong that goes on and then you end up by the end of a going I really don't know what I've had here other than to completely sets of views and the person in the middle hasn't done anything to try and break any or either of them down they've just kind of played the kind of the umpire role of batting the ball but I found that very unsatisfactory again I don't know I don't know what the solution is there's an element of you know I also as resources of you know cuts and and you don't have the long term especially in newspapers the long term you know the reporter who's been allowed to spend five weeks on a story I'm doing the real in-depth analysis a lot of it is the day-to-day and and journalists now have to not just do the story but do the website do a little blog do a kind of vlog and do a you know tweeters way and and and and therefore it's all about it's all about recording what's happening now but with not as much time to analyze what just happened you know it's there's no time to stand back and go okay I need to just spend the next two weeks just work out what the hell's happening in this election because it's it's all a bit weird no it's got to be about well what did you think of Jeremy Corbyn today he didn't answer that question Theresa made what was she she was she like she was just talking about shoes what's going on you know it's you know you then get sucked into that can a minute-by-minute and analysis rather than something it feels like I mean a little bit I mean you know you on the plus side you have got you can go online and you can seek out sites that don't do it more of a a background check and what's going on but you have to you know you have to make the effort yeah that's what I'd say right I've seem to have answered everything illicit right one fantastic question left one or else I'll okay we'll turn over your papers let the exam begin your the UM it's got to be good this one no pressure that adds five is fine haha that's fine in comedy you obviously satirize politicians and politics is there a politician that you actually respect and admire well I was asking this question upstairs for that if the most of them are dead you know I was so I had the only time I've I got close to working with a politician was Charles Kennedy because he was there when he was leader of Lib Dems he was the only party leader at the time of the invasion of Iraq who said this is monstrous this is wrong and at the time he was around by the press for being almost treacherous you know our soldiers are going in they're going in harm's way how dare you question well yes that's what you do you're not you're not implying that they're on their bit you know they're doing what they've been trained to do and what their leaders have told them to do what you do question are the people who have formulated those orders so and and he was successful as you know he he presided over the Lib Dem fault going from like whatever it was 12 MPs up to about 56 MPs which then you know Nick Nick Clegg took over after being scammer so I kind of had admired him for that and he seemed kind of what you saw was what you got really so I kind of admired that I am i Robin Cook to the stand he took right about that time as well but dead so you know on that bombshell well thank you so much very much thank you drink you

Channel: OxfordUnion

Views: 50,994

Rating: 4.8185253 out of 5

Keywords: Oxford, Union, Oxford Union, Oxford Union Society, debate, debating, The Oxford Union, Oxford University, Armando Iannucci

Id: 0odeKs9H1Rg

Length: 57min 27sec (3447 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2017

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