The Revolution Will Be Televised

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.

Revolution Will Be Televised preview

It's one of the bravest bits of television I've seen in recent years and I predict a really bright future for these two.

At times this show resembles a strange hybrid of Trigger Happy TV and Da Ali G Show, with Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein adopting a collision-course policy to satirising current affairs by thinking of ways to intervene. It's an approach that's redolent of countercultural pranks: not always funny, but often admirable. Tonight, they inform the people of Lincoln that they will soon, in part, be policed by security firm G4S, and serve up glasses of crude oil at the BP portrait awards. Their acting may be bad, but their interaction with the public shows real chutzpah.

Payday loan companies are free to shaft the poor

Charging extortionate rates of interest, these companies are robbing the poor. I know, because I worked undercover for one.

The big hits were loaded into episode one last week. Now this political prank show is more about quick raids on corporate foyers, and the unending delight of people with strong opinions who keep giving them long after they should have realised that their interlocutor is bogus.

In fairness, some don't know they're being filmed and, in the case of noted intellectual Jonathan Miller, his rant when he's doorstepped on election day by an openly corrupt Tory is rather magnificent. The members of anti-monarchist protest group Republic fare less well - and two hugely profitable utility companies haven't a hope.

Imagine if the Jackass boys sacked Steve O and replaced him with Mark Thomas. At times, that's the vibe of this prankishly political comedy show. Every now and then, creators Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein nail it; the tax affairs of Vodafone are put under the spotlight in a brilliantly ballsy guerilla rebranding exercise, while a nicely placed blue plaque testifies to the rampant inconsistencies in the economic vision of George Osborne. Elsewhere, the pranks are less successful - no one's going to match Chris Morris in the absurd public vox pops stakes, so it's probably not worth trying. Still, it's great that this kind of material is getting an airing on BBC3 - perhaps comedy's response to the parlous state of the nation is beginning at last.

The Revolution Will Be Televised is quite possibly the most intellectual show BBC Three has ever broadcast, which is odd seeing as this is a hidden camera show, a genre not know for its challenging material.

Created by Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein, the series revolves around various satirical pranks and stunts. In this first episode the duo attempted to clamp ambassadors' cars for not paying the congestion charge (they try to claim they don't have to because of diplomatic immunity); try to enter the London 2012 Olympic stadium wearing shirts with protest slogans on them; and pretend to be sadomasochists asking MI6 to send someone somewhere for some "fun".

BBC Three has had much success with satire in the past. After all, arguably its most successful comedy is Russell Howard's Good News. However, these two shows are the different ends of two funny extremes. Good News mocks all the weird and odd stories that somehow filter into our papers and news channels. It's admittedly not that satirical, but it is fun. TRWBT however is much more vicious and subversive. It tells you things you need to know. It has a huge nerve to go and do the things it does. And I'm surprised that Prowse and Rubinstein haven't been arrested yet.

The student-level pranks continue, with the aim of catching greedy companies, celebrities and politicians bang to rights. Although the targets are well chosen, there's a feeling that the japes don't go far enough to stir up controversy, or indeed, comedy. TV presenter Zam Zmith baffles Cheryl Cole and the Wanted with some big questions on the red carpet, and reporter Dale Maily gets stuck in at the Jubilee celebrations. The pranksters also spring a surprise on Vodafone, test the Lynx effect and find that EDF are not overly bothered by the presence of freezing grannies in their lobby.

Politically aware pranksters Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein continue their mission to lampoon hypocrisy, greed and corruption in their satirical comedy series. Pointed references to a mobile phone company, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a Guantanamo "demo" outside the US embassy in London make their point succinctly, but other ideas such as right-wing correspondent Dale Maily (a smart idea which could work better) and the energy and water company sketches fall short, while the ongoing Coalition prank just isn't very good.