Charlie Brooker's Election Wipe

TV review: Charlie Brooker's Election Wipe, BBC2

What does it say in the Bible about the last coming first? After an election campaign that has been crammed to the brink with satirical programmes, Charlie Brooker bowled along just as last orders were being called to show the rest how it should be done.

Charlie Brooker is unique in his approach to current affairs. He doesn't cheapen issues by trying to be funny about a serious topic; he simply teases out the contradictions and then pours on his own cynicism. After all, he can't be as cynical as the media he's ostensibly reporting on. For all the fun he has at the expense of American broadcasters while slurping pretend tea on his living-room Chesterfield, tonight it will be his mission to uncover truth from British politicians.

Radio Times review

Charlie Brooker is just what we need to cut politicians and pundits down to size after five weeks of campaigning. He's as funny, and spot-on, about TV coverage of the election as he is about the candidates themselves. Where shows like Have I got News for You mock the politicians, Brooker also satirises the good, bad and ugly coverage itself.

Expect disparaging dissection of all the parties, and quite a lot of deadpan exasperation with it. Best of all, he'll have the brilliantly dim Philomena Cunk by his side to really get to the bottom of all this election stuff. Because as Cunk would say, "What is politicians?"

Charlie Brooker: Farage has been giving him problems

"Nigel Farage is like a flipping, slightly pissed-up sort of brother-in-law or something," according to Charlie Brooker, who'll be presenting his customary Election Wipe this evening on BBC Two, ahead of tomorrow's turnout for what is predicted to be the closest election in years.

Charlie Brooker takes on immigration reporting in Wipe

In a clip from tonight's Screen Wipe special, the writer and broadcaster finds formulaic news bulletins ripe for parody.

A beginner's guide to the election by Philomena Cunk

Why should you vote? They say that if you don't vote, you can't complain. But the Queen doesn't vote and she looks pissed off with everything unless it's a horse. Mind you, I'd probably have a face like that if I kept getting serenaded by Gary Barlow.