Nigel Farage Gets His Life Back

Top 40 TV Shows of 2016: #39 Nigel Farage Gets...

Kevin Bishop had the mannerisms down to a tee - the wheezy chuckle, the raised finger and lean-in with every pronouncement.

But while Kevin Bishop did a brilliant job in impersonating Nigel Farage, capturing his smoky laugh and smug, smirking glances, the show wasn't brutal and witty as satire should be. Instead it was oddly affectionate.We felt sorry for poor Nige. He had secured Brexit and assaulted the Establishment but instead of winning glory and sainthood, he found himself at something of a loose end.

With his life's ambition done and dusted, he suddenly had nothing to do but sit in the pub or potter around at home doing jigsaws, watching quiz shows and getting angry at local takeaways for not offering stewed cheese and lamb cutlets, the hearty foods of Merrie Olde England. As he sat in his garden shed waiting for the phone to ring he seemed not like the man who stirred up dangerous xenophobia and division, but rather an old grandfather with nothing to do but wait for dementia. Poor Nige.

But Brexit hasn't happened yet, and, as one of its key architects, Farage still needs to be scrutinised and evaluated mercilessly. To dismiss him as a feeble old chap, getting bored and pathetic, is dangerous. With Ukip's recent antics he could be back as the party's permanent leader soon and might burrow his way into Brexit negotiations, either publicly or behind the scenes. He is a man to be watched and to be wary of, not at whom we should poke gentle, affectionate fun.

In the wake of the Ukip leader's resignation, this mockumentary follows Nige (Kevin Bishop) as he returns to Little England life, something that mainly consists of pints, puzzles, episodes of It Ain't Half Hot Mum and a sense of irrelevance. The premise is obviously to recast Farage as a lovable buffoon, but why anybody would want to humanise the poster boy for one of the most heinous ideologies in living memory isn't quite so clear.

Nigel Farage show will make you wheeze with laughter

Kevin Bishop will make you laugh. He may not look much like the Toad of Toad Hall, but he certainly sounds and acts like him. The tobacco-phlegming, rasping guffaws are spot on, as is the nasal bark with which he delivers so much of his strange logic.

TV review: Nigel Farage Gets His Life Back, BBC2

The trouble is that the UKIP leader's recent life is actually way beyond satire, making it hard for this programme to get that many more laughs by fictionalising it.

Nigel Farage Gets His Life Back review

This seems like it could - maybe - have been a good idea for a two-minute Dead Ringers sketch. But stretching the idea of what Nigel Farage gets up to away from frontline politics into a 35-minute mockumentary makes for very slim pickings indeed.

Kevin Bishop interview

He's portrayed numerous famous people during his career as a comedy actor, but Kevin Bishop was baffled when asked to take on his latest role - as on/off Ukip leader Nigel Farage.

We keep hearing that satire is dead. People like Trump, Boris and Farage are just so absurd that a satirist can hardly make fun of them. Reality has done the job before the writer can even lift their pen. I agree with this, but I also blame our antiseptic culture of trigger warnings and political correctness. Perhaps satirists, or their bosses, are wary of causing offence and so some necessary brutality is held back. That's why we have Newzoids instead of Spitting Image.

Gamely, the BBC is attempting a satirical comedy about Nigel Farage here, with the Ukip leader played by Kevin Bishop. There may not be a physical resemblance between the actor and the cigar-smoking charlatan, but Bishop captures him nonetheless through mannerisms and voice. It's a mock fly-on-the-wall documentary following Farage after the Brexit vote, when all the angry purpose has suddenly gone from his life and there's nothing to do but go to the pub or grow a moustache.

The secret diary of Nigel Farage

Kevin Bishop, star of BBC2 comedy Nigel Farage Gets His Life Back, and the show's co-writer Alan Connor imagine what a week in the life of the former Ukip leader might have been like after his brief retirement from politics...

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