Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein interview
The Revolution Will Be Televised is back on our screens to bother politicians and big businesses who step out of line... plus pose more big questions to celebrities too of course.
Viewers that watched the award-winning first series will quickly realise this new batch of episodes is a step up in ambition, with some of the stunts looking set to get everyone talking.
Targets include the EDL, Google, George Clooney, Cara Delevingne, Nike, Bell Pottinger, the Saudi Embassy, betting shops, Ed Miliband, Katie Price, Nigel Farage, the G8 Summit, Amazon, Ryan Air, GCHQ, Network Rail, Boris Johnson and many, many more.
Creators and stars Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein agree that their second series is bigger: "The characters are more developed, and the hits too. Last year we were trying to work out what the format was, how you worked in the animations, what the title was, and things like that - this year we were able to focus on working with the great people at Hat Trick to really hone in on making everything bigger."
One of the stand-out scenes in the first episode sees Jolyon evading security to get up close and personal with the Prime Minister himself. It's all down to the planning, as he explains: "The Cameron hit was incredibly tense because he's surrounded by SA1 [the secret service branch]. We did our research and worked out where he was going to be, and planned it to the last detail.
"What was so interesting was being so close to this man that you see so often, and watching him drop from his public facade - which I believe is just as much as a sort of character as the characters we play - watching the panic set in."
It's not just Cameron though. "There's a lot more to come, for instance you're going to see Nigel Farage, Ed Milliband, Jeremy Hunt, Alex Sammond, Jack Straw... we got a lot of the front benches this year."
Filmed across "an epic 17 weeks", the show involved lots of meticulous planning to get to the targets, as the stars explain: "We work with a team of jujutsu trained samurai jedis and have, somehow, managed to in many different ways circumvent the process."
Despite some high tech planning, sometimes it was surprisingly simple, as the programme found out when it turned up to Google's offices to perform a stunt there. "We found there's great power in a high-vis jacket. No one questions it.
"The way we did the Google stunt is we went to the front desk and asked if we could get in, they said 'no, you have to deliver around to the back', so we asked them to phone ahead to say we're coming. So when we showed up [at the back doors] it was like 'oh, look, it's the guys the front desk sent us' and we got to go upstairs un-challenged. We didn't even expect to get in - we had a B plan to set up something in the foyer. We were wandering around for about an hour - we were there for so long we even discussed having lunch in their amazing cafe, but we didn't do that. They can take our tax but we can't take their food!
"It's also that whole Monty Python thing of 'no one expects the Spanish Inquisition'. No one in their right mind is going to go and spend all that time putting these huge letters together. We did a lot of re-brands of betting shops too - so Ladbrokes became Broke Lads, Coral became Immoral, Paddy Power became Paddy's Poorer. The branding is so good this series that we'd ring up people from Coral and go 'do you get it?' and they'd go 'oh, yes, that's really going to give us the edge in the area'. They must just think to themselves, 'this is weird, but it can't be a pisstake'.
"You learn there are different strategies for making people feel that what you're doing is completely normal. Whether that's marching in with a suit, or representing that you're just carrying out the orders of someone higher up the chain, are thus you're all in it together."
The duo found themselves less nervous this time around. "What is slightly worrying is how breaking social norms becomes a rather normal thing. Stuff we did in the first series which we thought was really risky, like doing the Lib Deb HQ really early on, that stuff becomes really normal."
However, there was still some anxiety, as Jolyon explains: "Cameron was definitely quite nervy, simply because I knew what was at stake in terms of how strategic our planning had been to find him." Jolyon also meets the EDL this series in character as right wing reporter Dale Maily: "There was a lot of adrenaline that day!"
Heydon explains how the tensest moments are the ones the viewers tend not to get to see. For example, he found himself in hot water after having plastered the International Criminal Court (ICC) with posters of Tony Blair and George Bush. "Half the most nerve wracking stuff is the stuff that happens off camera afterwards. In that case, it was two hours of us discussing with them what we're going to do."
However, perhaps surprisingly, the pair have never been arrested: "You see, we plan it so well beforehand. It goes through Editorial Policy, it goes through our lawyers at Hat Trick, it goes through BBC lawyers, so by the time we actually do a hit we know it's been signed off by a lot of responsible people.
"Also, we know what we're supposed to say when it does hit the fan, and we know what our rights are. Knowing your rights is incredibly important!
"So we know we've done nothing illegal, it's more the seizing of the footage which a lot of police officers and security people tend to assume they can do. There's a lot of stand-offs lasting for a long time, including where we've been told we're not leaving a place until we hand over the footage. We've had to be really firm about it and say 'look, sorry, but we can't do that. You can speak to our legal team if you want'.
"What's really going to be interesting is some of the brands targeted don't know that this is coming out because we got in and out without them even knowing. That's thanks to some of the technology we're using and to our fantastic team who worked tirelessly."
Funnily, the most security The Revolution Will Be Televised came across was in an unlikely place. "We managed to get to the Prime Minister, get into the International Criminal Court, but the Mobo Awards .... no way!
"It's funny because it's often the celeb stuff that people lock you out of much more quickly. It's really weird, we live in a culture where you can't ask a celeb any kind of serious question. 'So where is the most embarrassing place you've ever been sick' is fine, but you can't ask them anything deep!"
There were a number of brushes with the law whilst filming the programme, but some of it was positive. Notably, Heydon managed to cause a lockdown at the government spy post GCHQ. He describes how he was approached by someone from the organisation, "You could tell he was really officious. He was kind of running around saying 'You guys are in so much trouble. Do you realise this is a top secret facility? You just shut it down. There's a 10 minute queue of cars around the block! This is just unbelievable!'... Then the police turned up and said 'Hi guys, what's the programme called?' They downloaded it on their phones and said 'ah, that's quite funny'. We should get them in as writers actually, whilst the video was buffering one of them said 'yeah, that's probably GCHQ downloading all your emails'."
With the success of the first series was there a danger this time they'd not be able to operate without getting spotted? The duo's response is quite simply: "Politicians will have to start watching the show first." However, they do admit "We had conversations with SA1 regularly where they'd say to us 'look, we know who you are... and fuck off'. A guy from the army tweeted us saying 'Heydon and Jolyon - I saw your pictures up in our guard house, saying do not admit these two'. We're also apparently in the guard house in Sandhurst."
However, they did take many precautions anyway to ensure any organisations searching for their backgrounds online in advance couldn't find anything... they even went as far as legally changing their names by Deed Poll during filmed to try and avoid detection. Prowse became Max Clark and Rubinstein legally renamed himself Simon Watson. It particularly made avoiding detection by celebrity PRs easier: "If you're going to Capital FM's Summer Ball and find out you upset Cheryl Cole a little bit by asking her 'Why are we here?'..."
Every now and again the name changes did cause issues though. Prowse, looking at Rubinstein, laughingly recounts one story: "At the Israeli Embassy, where the policeman asked you your name, you're like 'Simon Watson' and then I said 'Heydon Prowse' to which you had to say 'What are you talking about Max?'."
We turn to the duo's relationship with the BBC... the broadcaster being one of the targets in Series 2, despite the fact they paid to make the show. "The BBC knows it would be a hypocrite if it didn't do that, because it's an institution like every other institution - they all have problems, they all do things that are perhaps mistakes or they shouldn't have done, so it's good for them to satirise themselves."
The comedians are very thankful to the BBC for supporting them though: "Zai Bennett, who commissioned us, is really brave. I don't think a lot of commissioners would have commissioned it. We were so pleased for him when we won the BAFTA - in one of the write ups it said how he took a punt on this; and when we sort of think about it, from their point of view, it's true, they really did.
"Every time that we get pulled up by the police and the police call the BBC, their lawyers have to speak to someone. It's difficult for the BBC to do this, it's not an easy programme to make."
Back to the topic of comedy, do they view their show as left wing? "I think what you'll see in this show is that we're just as vehement about the left now as we are about the right, because if we had any kind of effective opposition then this government would be in serious trouble. Maybe it is seen as a programme on the left, but we'd prefer it to just be seen as a programme that points out the stupidity and ridiculousness within power."
At this point BCG points out their not exactly working class sounding names. "When the show was announced, the Guardian ran it and literally the first comment was 'Heydon and Jolyon? Fuck off'. Ha ha. There's not much we can do about our names!"
Can their satirical comedy actually change anything? "We like to say we see satire as a form of revenge, where no one actually gets hurt. I don't know if you can change opinion, I think a lot of people will probably watch the show because they agree with the issues we're raising in the first place... but there's a lot of people watching the show that it's a form of education for - they might not have heard of half these things - they might not have heard of Fracking for example - so it's a first introduction... then, potentially, you can change."
Are they ever hypocrites though, using products or services they've attacked? Heydon quips: "I'm going to tweet about bringing down the establishment on my iPhone. The thing is, it's a comedy show... we're not protestors. We're comedians making a comedy show for people's entertainment."
Jolyon picks up the thread: "If I did wear Nike trainers would that stop Nike using the same tactics like suppressing wages in Indonesia? I don't think so, but what might change it is if we shout about it quite loudly to over a million people on a network. I think it's the responsibility of the producers of the products to start answering their consumers' needs by starting to behave in more ethical ways. That said, I do like a good pair of Nikes!"
They make a joint point too: "This isn't Heydon and Jolyon's opinions, this is The Revolution Will Be Televised, and The Revolution Will Be Televised has its own voice. That voice says 'we'll go after absolutely all of you, and if we haven't come for you yet, we will come for you'."
So, what's next for the format? If they do become too well known in the UK, they have an answer ready: "Well, there's other countries to go to. We've always wanted to go to the Whitehouse! We're looking at that in a very coordinated way with the BBC, and have been for some time. We'd have a field day in America. Watching us getting tasered - that's another BAFTA?!?
"There's a lot of stuff happening in Russia right now which is absolutely disgusting which it'd be great to draw attention to... but that would be even more dangerous.
"If we did a third series we wouldn't want to disregard the UK - there could be some incredibly interesting things happening that we'd want to talk about."
Series 2 of The Revolution Will Be Televised is on BBC Three on Sunday nights.
Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein will be appearing at The Big Comedy Conference on 30th November 2013.