So just when you thought every last comic pip had been squeezed out of the election here comes Frankie Boyle. The too-hot-for-mainstream-TV Scot is joined by the so-hot-they-are-on-everything twosome of Sara Pascoe and Katherine Ryan for this iPlayer discussion following the success of their previous online outing, Referendum Autopsy.
At first this seems like Boyle set to Standard Offensive with his opening routine explaining that the “next five years will be like The Hunger Games without the Games,” and then lobbing the requisite rotten abuse at all the party leaders. But beyond the quips there is some serious discussion of the mess those shy Tories have potentially got the country into.
Of course there are also plenty of controversial jokes and decent lines, often at the expense of the Lib Dems’ demise. They are “not even the biggest yellow party any more,” points out our bearded host, who, it has to be said, hogs all the best lines.
Pascoe and Ryan are very good too, though for a while the real hoots come from a pair of 8-year-old twins who arrive wearing headphones to block out the profanities. They seem funny and lovely. Or at least they do until one of them mentions that if he had the vote he would choose UKIP.
In fact this is quite a scary theme to the show. Pascoe mentions that her sister is a teacher and at her school’s mock election UKIP polled 90%. I hope she was talking about the pupils. At least these people don’t have the real vote. Maybe we should raise the voting age to 30 to keep it that way for a while. To balance that at least there is a brilliant clip of an ordinary mum silencing David Cameron with her question asking him how come he, George Osborne and Boris Johnson were all in the same class at school.
Luckily some further sense is spoken by special guest, rapper Akala, who cuts through the crap to rattle through the history of racism in the UK. And just to underline his point the audience is polled on whether they think this country is racist and the answer is a clear yes. I'm not sure if I'd vote for Boyle if he ever pursued a career as an MP, but at least his latest programme gets my thumbs up.
Watch Frankie Boyle's Election Autopsy here.
