Charlie Brooker

Black Mirror series 2 episode 1 spoiler-free review

Charlie Brooker's sci-fi suspense series returns in style with "Be Right Back". Here's Ryan's review of the first in a new season...

In the 80s we had the eye-opening and respectfully titled Clive James on Television to clue us in on bonkers overseas ads, foreign - usually French - TV titillation and Japanese salarymen undergoing elaborately devised torture techniques on the off-chance of winning a Teasmade. Then in the 90s we had Tarrant on TV. Shorter title, friendlier nomenclature, more smut. Now it's the new millennium and - mainly thanks to Tony Blair - we're all on first name terms. So we get Paddy's TV Guide, in which Paddy McGuinness - but really, who else? - cues up errant TV clips on his Paddy-player, all to reassure us that foreigners do still talk funny and there's nothing more hilarious under the sun than tikka-tinged septuagenarian bodybuilders (actually, the Padster might be right on that last point). The Pad-man's got form with the clips format, with 2011's charity gogglebox quiz Paddy's Show and Telly and last year's mysteriously dropped ITV QI manqué Mad Mad World, but, try and try as he might, his bid to dislodge Charlie Brooker as the nation's coaxial Pilate seems doomed to eventual failure.

Charlie Brooker on the Daily Mail getting offended

This is fusty, old-school outrage, spluttered in your mind's eye by a swivel-eyed ex-colonel with dangerously high blood pressure. But because it flopped, it's actually sort of poignant, like watching an old man ineffectually waving his fist as they concrete the duckpond and put up a Nando's.

Charlie Brooker's take on 2012 was enjoyable for many reasons, no more so than the fact it took place after the year had ended - unlike all the other comedy reviews of the year.

Another reason, of course, was because the show covered quite a lot of events that people forgot about; the sinking of the Costa Concordia in January, for example, which Brooker covered by showing the idiotic comparisons made by Entertainment Weekly between Concordia and the film Titanic, including the probing question: "Was Celine Dion playing when it sank?"

There were other decent moments too, but some of these, like the campaign against Joseph Kony and Brooker's mocking of both Kony and the strangely cult-like people campaigning against him, were covered more in-depth by Brooker himself on 10 O'Clock Live. Speaking of which, 10 O'Clock Live also appeared on the show when Brooker covered Jimmy Carr's taxes.

However, when it comes to Brooker the most interesting part is when he stops going on about how awful things are and actually finds the positive things around us. In the case of 2012 it was the Olympics and Paralympics, and while these are, on a whole, not the funniest moments, they do provide us with a glimmer of joy in an otherwise gloriously miserable show.

With more Wipe programmes coming up in February, Brooker's work is perhaps the most satirical comedy around. Other shows should be encouraged to be as cutting and thought-provoking as this is.

Gigglebox weekly #71

This week Ian Wolf gives his nightmare vision of the forthcoming royal birth, learns about a nude swimming pool and hears Charlie Brooker talking positively about something.

Charlie Brooker's 2012 Wipe - Brief Thoughts

For what it's worth, this round-up format always seems kinda rushed to me, and I'd like to see him pick a few bigger topics and do more detailed pieces.

Armchair Paralympian to Paedosavile: my words of 2012

Never mind omnishambles - my personal dictionary tells you all you need to know about the past year.

Easy to mock the cliches of crime dramas in, say, a sketch show; much harder to do it at full length. Charlie Brooker and Daniel Maier managed triumphantly, writing the kind of extended, fizzing spoof that brought back happy memories of the Naked Gun films. It didn't hurt that the cast had form in the genre - leads John Hannah and Suranne Jones have both played detectives in straight dramas and proved just as good at po-faced parody. Plus there were enough throwaway visual gags to make it a DVD banker.

2012's been a great year for Charlie Brooker. His satirical anthology Black Mirror (which, by the way, is coming back early next year) and cop spoof A Touch of Cloth were massive hits, he was named 'Best Comedy Entertainment Personality' at the British Comedy Awards and he welcomed his first child with wife Konnie Huq.

Despite all that though, Charlie still has tons to moan about from the last 12 months in his annual Wipe programme - like the Olympic Games, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the US presidential election. Thankfully we won't have to wait another year for our next slice of Brooker grouching - a new weekly series will follow 2012 Wipe on BBC Two.

As ever in these media-saturated times, there is plenty for Charlie Brooker to sink his satirical teeth into over the last 12 months, though for once, not all of it has been bad. He'll be reflecting on the Olympics, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the jailing of members of Pussy Riot and, of course, the US presidential election in which the Republicans both scared us and added to the gaiety of nations. Limmy, Sharon Horgan and Peter Serafinowicz also contribute.