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StefGotBooted@StefGotBooted & @Ecoclown

Iannucci Sells Out With Jess Phillips 🧵

Armando Iannucci and Jess Phillips share a stage for an evening of political satire.

Iannucci Sells Out With Jess Phillips, part 1 of 4: [The List logo] Armando Iannucci, Jess Phillips and Jan Ravens on Satire in an Age of Absurdity [Rating: five red dots out of five] / Tara Watison / 20 February 2020 / Politics on all sides is a mess at the moment. A real mess. Whether it’s the ramblings of Trump or his left-wing equivalent Bernie Sanders we seem to be deluged with increasingly ludicrous events emanating from the words and actions of our politicians. It's become a cliche to say that reality has become beyond parody but I am going to say it anyway! And it was this idea that was the topic of a most illuminating exchange in the marketplace of ideas between former satirist Armando Iannucci and future Labour leader and everywoman Jess Phillips. The evening starts with Iannucci taking to the stage and warming up the crowd with some old tested material. "What's big and small at the same time?" he asks the audience. "A big egg!" they shout back. Armando in full flow is like a professional chef grilling up some old classics. "Hello Hugh," he says to the audience. "Cheeseburgers were a penny back then!" they shout back. Masterly.
Iannucci Sells Out With Jess Phillips, part 2 of 4: But soon we’re back to politics as Iannucci rolls back the years to when he was last relevant with a brutal takedown of the US president, "Donald Trump is a ninny isn't he?" he asks the audience with a glint in his eye, you can see he’s really starting to get fired up now. "What a cockwomble, an orange prannock. Here is an alternative fact for you: Donald Trump is gonna change America’s name to Trumpton because he's got more dough than Windy Miller!" The millennials who don't get the reference sit stoney-faced, just like they did after the exit poll on 12 December confirmed the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn in an election where Labour lost hundreds of thousands of votes to the Liberal Democrats. However, ignoring the snowflakes, I have tears rolling down my eyes and my ribs ache from laughter as the sorcerer of satire unleashes another volley of these quickfire gags. Not to be upstaged, in the following section Jess Phillips brings us back to a topic close to her heart: herself. In a discussion about fake news she tells of a harrowing experience at the hands of the trolls, “a few months ago someone on Twitter posted screenshots of an article claiming that I was running a cockfighting ring in my constituency! It’s out of control and we need to be looking at prison sentences for this sort of thing.” It’s unclear whether she’s speaking about cockfighting or fake news but the audience nods along vigoriously regardless.
Iannucci Sells Out With Jess Phillips, part 3 of 4: Phillips then treats us to a charming glimpse into her life replete with working class cultural signifiers that somehow makes her even more relatable, “I’m not really one for satire, bab, too many fancy words for someone as normal as me. Anyway, after a long day speaking truth to power, I much prefer to curl up on the sofa with the hubby and a nice cuppa and watch an episode of Emmerdale Street.” With that Phillips taps her fingers on a tin of Carlsberg and cracks it open with an effortless flourish. As she sups from the Danish beer she winks at the audience and many a knee went weak. But despite the MP's indifference to the whole premise of the evening, it doesn't stop her having an opinion, "I think I speak for a lot of people in this room who are here to see me and, you know me, I’m proper salt of the Earth, me, and people respond to me because they like that about me and I think, in my opinion, that satire is bad." Iannucci demurs somewhat saying that while he's not been impressed with much of the current crop of satirists he makes an exception for the BBC2 show Tonight With Vladimir Putin. "It's bloody brilliant! The size of Putin's head in that costume, it's hilarious! I really think if it had come out in 2015 that Brexit wouldn't have happened no matter how hard ‘Magic Grandpa’ tried! And by Magic Grandpa, I mean the Brexiter Jeremy Corbyn!" The pair then go on a lengthy detour where they decry the Labour Party’s inability to elect someone as authentic as Jess for leader, with Phillips spending roughly forty minutes reading various extracts from her new book to reinforce the point. As the audience and chair Samira Ahmed’s eyes glaze over in rapt attention, they know they are in the presence of greatness.
Iannucci Sells Out With Jess Phillips, part 4 of 4: Interestingly, both guests agree that the person who now ought to get the role isn’t even a Labour Party member anymore: Alistair Campbell. Armando sums up with the comment that the former spin doctor 'could really put the party on the war footing that’s needed given the size of the task ahead. He has plenty of experience with that.’ As we enter the final third of the show Iannucci treats us to some Malcolm Tucker impressions with Jess Phillips role-playing as a grossly incompetent and self-centred MP on the recieving end of one of the firebrand character’s trademark outbursts. ‘We’re really In The Thick of It now!’’ he finishes to a standing ovation. The night wraps up with Amando giving a state of the nation speech about the current plight of modern satire, ‘I really don’t know where we go from here, it’s not like back when you had greats like Chris Morris still speaking to me, these days it’s all fake articles on Twitter and parody accounts. It’s just so niche now. Where is the next Matt Forde going to come from? Certainly not from photoshopping websites, I’ll tell you that for free!’ As he finishes, the comedian looks wearily at us and blinks many times in quick succession, clearly the thoughts of people online spending their time spoonerising the names of the righteous upsetting him. “Well that’s all folks, how sad,” he says doing a spot on Alan Partridge impression. And with that he's gone as the audience files out of the venue to the sound of Jess Phillips sending us into the night with a reading of the rest of her book. Jan Ravens was also on stage for some reason.
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Gareth #FBPE @CentristDad73
Replying to @StefGotBooted
Can you post the actual article please
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StefGotBooted @StefGotBooted
Replying to @CentristDad73
it's the second tweet you cunt t.co/GPQKmtr
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CecilCentigrade @CecilCentigrade · 19 Jan 2020
Starmer Stasi
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