Jolyon Rubinstein

If you read this website on a regular basis then you know we're big supporters of the save BBC Three campaign. Despite that, occasionally the channel produces a programme that tarnishes their name and The Revolution Will be Televised is one such show. Whilst I don't blame the channel for bringing back the satirical comedy, especially as it won a BAFTA last year, Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein offer nothing new during this third outing. Old ground is retread courtesy of Dennis Pennis-lite character Zam Zmith whilst plenty of the puns concerning Wonga and Nandos' suspect business policies were just woeful. Meanwhile the duo's jaunt to America means that their coalition MP characters were given the chance to mingle with Sarah Palin and Bill Clinton. This trip to the States also allowed for their character of reporter Dale Maily to quiz several Americans about their use of firearms. These segments took up quite a lot of the show and I thought that the show really sought cheap soundbites rather than anything substantial. I personally feel that the main issue with The Revolution Will be Televised is that both Prowse and Rubinstein come across as self-satisfying toffs who feel jubilant when they get a famous face on their programme. This is best exemplified when they approach Gordon Brown at a book signing with their version of his tome having a different cover from the original. I felt that this segment had nothing to say and instead felt like an opportunity for the boys to pat themselves on the back for getting a former Prime Minister on their show. For a show that won the Comedy Programme BAFTA, the other issue with The Revolution Will be Televised is that it's not funny at all. All the gags are obvious and clichéd there is nothing clever on show here and I for one feel that if the programme hadn't won an award then it wouldn't have been rewarded with a third series. Suffice to say that I won't be watching the rest of this run and I recommend that all of you do the same.

Radio Times review

Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein bow out with a last clutch of stunts, many of them harder-edged than before. Fake right-wing hack Dale Maily romps around the Notting Hill Carnival, in a segment that initially appears to be a rather uncomfortable experiment to see how people respond to a racist. But the magic of the event soon gets hold of him.

Backbenchers James and Barnaby take their abusive coalition relationship to a teachers' union protest, before going a step further by somehow being allowed to address a closed meeting. One scene will draw complaints, but it makes a basic point well: in Kensington, the Israeli embassy is expanding, which is bad news for the local shops that will have to be bulldozed.

The usual stunts - putting up insulting signs and delivering insulting props at corporate or political HQs - are above average this week, with a highlight being the brightly coloured donation boxes installed in the main parties' offices, so businessmen can leave money in exchange for a peerage. There's also an excellent re-edit of Ed Miliband's conference speech, turning into the dullest cover version of One Vision by Queen ever.

But increasingly the stars of this show are James and Barnaby, the low-ranking coalition goons played by pranksters Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse. This week they tackle Scottish independence, discussing the issue with kilted football fans approaching an England v Scotland match. Can they survive?

Radio Times review

Sometimes this show feels rather like an endless list of depressing facts about a corrupt world, with the bad guys too numerous and malign to be dented by light pranking. With the best ideas naturally blown in the first few episodes, tonight there are quite a few will-this-do stunts, such as plastering a tax-avoidance slogan on Cadbury's HQ, then running away.

As always, Revolution is best when Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse interact at length with unwitting stooges, preferably in ridiculous circumstances. Their attempt to launch a privatised lifeguard service on Brighton beach does not go down well. And we still need more of BBCOMGWTF, the apparently vapid red-carpet interview segment that suddenly asks questions like: "Is Tony Blair a war criminal?"

Comedy revolution: political pranksters at large

They waltz into politicians' houses, party conferences and embassies highlighting the hypocrisies of the rich and powerful. And they've never been arrested - yet. Joshi Herrmann joins the BAFTA-winning Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein on their latest stunt: to try to flog the Houses of Parliament to the highest bidder

Long may Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse run riot incognito. Tonight Ed Miliband, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage fall victim to the politically driven pranksters. Posing as a workman, Prowse also waltzes into the Afghan and Saudi Arabian embassies to install "a glass ceiling" to "protect women from their aspirations".

Not all of the stunts come off: Katie Price is already too much of a joke and Johnson sidesteps a certificate for being The Hardest Working Man In Showbiz. Still, when this viewer wasn't giggling, she was boggle-eyed at their gumption. Best of all is when they sell ice creams to bankers and charge their outraged customers extra for "insurance". The name painted on their cart: PP Ice creams. Geddit?

They could scarcely have timed it better.

In the week when ex-BBC executive Mark Byford popped up to plug a book and defend his £949,000 pay-off as 'not greedy', Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse went chugging outside the BBC to raise money for BBC In Need. The Bafta-winning duo behind The Revolution Will Be Televised (BBC Three) were bang on the money.

You could criticise the second series of this mischievously scabrous satire as taking aim at exactly the same targets as the first - self-serving politicians, fat-cat money-brokers, corporations exploiting tax loopholes. But when those targets are so blatantly in need of a kicking, it's good to see someone stepping up to the mark.

The pair's stock-in-trade is penetrating the inner rings of power in cunning disguise. Their secret weapon is that they're entirely plausible as children of privilege. These chaps don't have chips on their shoulders, they've got herbed frites, and it's the sense that they are rejecting their own sense of entitlement that gives this revolution some added bite.

Class traitors Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse return for a second series of pranks, stunts and hard stats about the sort of injustices that make Russell Brand's blood boil. Making merriment out of tax avoidance or PR firms that shill for tyrants isn't easy, but Rubinstein and Prowse have two ways to achieve it: flat-out silliness and a colossal amount of nerve. The series two opener sees Rubinstein combine both as he somehow accosts David Cameron at a fundraiser, demanding that he autograph his 1986 Bullingdon Club annual.

A post-Occupy Trigger Happy TV? Mark Thomas minus the Dave Spart earnestness? Politicised pranksters Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein return for a second series tonight and, even if their stunts inevitably miss as often as they hit, it's easy to give them the benefit of the doubt.

For a start, they usually pick good targets - a glance at a list of PR company Bell Pottinger's recent clients suggests they're deserving candidates for the kind of treatment they receive here - but also, there is so little current TV with a remotely subversive agenda.

If you suspect that keeping calm and carrying on has become shorthand for enduring - without complaint - any amount of shit being dumped on us by government, vested interests and high finance, this is for you. The Revolution Will Be Televised isn't subtle, but maybe it doesn't need to be. Maybe it's enough to know that someone's still awake.