The Revolution Will Be Televised

Review: A joyously bile-spitting moment of TV

The Revolution Will Be Televised sang from the bitter hymn-sheet that many viewers will also sing from, but how long can it stay angry once it's embraced by the mainstream?

You can't imagine Jolyon Rubinstein or Heydon Prowse getting elected as prime minister but they do wage a bold revolution against 'hypocrisy, greed, and corruption' in this snortingly funny satire. There are street pranks targeting bankers and government officials, spoof news pieces that have a whiff of The Day Today about them, and a campaigning zeal that would make Mark Thomas proud.

There's more than one way to make a prank show, as we're reminded tonight by BBC Three's new series The Revolution Will Be Televised (10pm).

Rather than just winding up random people for the hell of it, although obviously that's great fun as well, pranksters Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein set out to humiliate the greedy, the corrupt, the hypocritical etc.

In one sketch tonight, for example, they take to the streets to raise funds for a spoof organisation they call GUBOFMYC, designed to humiliate bankers.

I couldn't possibly get away with telling you what those initials actually stand for, but trust me, you won't disagree with the sentiments...

A colourful collision of Mark Thomas and Dom Joly, this political hidden-camera prankathon is fact-packed, judiciously targeted, scarily well performed and, often, splutteringly funny.

The stars, Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse, set out to satirise tax avoidance, state violence, banker bailouts and other 21st-century injustices - their main weapon being sheer cojones. I was laughing and stuffing my fist in my mouth at the same time as they fired stupid questions at policemen mid-riot, tried to climb over MI6's front gate and, in the best sketch, proved that Tony Blair's central London mansion isn't as heavily guarded as it's cracked up to be.

You may remember a story about a couple of scamps presenting George Osborne with a GCSE maths book. Well, this is their show, and it's more inventive and interesting than that prank might suggest. There's as much silliness as there is chutzpah, whether they're infiltrating the Lib Dem conference to show up the coalition (and persuade Vince Cable to fetch them a latte) or chucking a question about the Irish bailout into a red-carpet puff interview. But there's also a subversive edge to many of the stunts, proving that political points can be made in a number of ways: hosting a rave outside what they describe as 'torture club' MI6, or discovering which political slogans can be worn into the Olympic Park. If Private Eye did a live-action version for kids, it might resemble this.

TV review: The Revolution Will Be Televised

These two pranksters even tried to get Tony Blair sainted. What cojones!

There are shades of Chris Morris, Mark Thomas and Dom Joly in this new series, a politically skewed news and sketch-based satire. The programme-makers have already hit the headlines in a stunt when the Chancellor George Osborne was handed a GCSE book to help with his maths skills at a speech to bankers. Now seeking out corruption, greed and hypocrisy, Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein aim to humiliate and expose everyone from bankers and celebrities to Olympic organisers and tax-avoiding diplomats. Funny up to a point, even if you get the impression it's been done more artfully before.

The pranksters who gave George Osborne GCSE maths book

The chancellor is just one victim of two comedians dedicated to cutting celebrities down to size for their new TV show, The Revolution Will Be Televised.

These days, the chances of us getting a news satire show anywhere near as sharp as The Daily Show or The Colbert Report seem slim. If we do, it's unlikely to be found on BBC3, as this new prank-based effort attests. Embassies not paying the congestion charge or Philip Green's tax avoidance are matters that should be brought to public attention as often as possible, but the tactics on show here are mostly rag-week-level practical jokes that, in a pre-internet world, would have earned the players a punch in the mouth rather than a TV show.

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