Making News draws on the recent misfortunes of the BBC to present a rather gentle satire that verges toward blackly comic fantasy.
The premise that those at the top have connived with a cultic organisation, the ‘Million Man Mind’ leads recently temporarily promoted Rachel Clarke (Suki Webster) to collaborate with Carter Setchfield, the current news editor (Dan Starkey), junior producer Anna Kelly (Sara Pascoe) and Panorama reporter Noel Quickly (Liam Williams), to ultimately unmask a conspiracy at the heart of the BBC.
The plot nutshelled, at least in part, we move on to consider how well it works; the answer seems to be pretty well, again, at least in part. The characters are believable without stereotypicality, and the actors play them to the hilt, although Phil Jupitus as the Director General and Hal Cruttenden as news reader Jonathan McVeigh manage to steal much of the limelight in the latter half of the show.
Despite a light touch all round, the potential for more serious satire is at least implicit throughout. There are one or two shining moments, and the practice of each cast member crossing themselves whenever the word ‘Salford’ is used certainly tickled the audience of the performance seen.
A while back comedian Mitch Benn produced a number titled ‘Proud of the BBC’, whose lyrics consist of all of the BBC’s back catalogue Benn admires, along with a few one suspects he’s never watched or listened to. Always quick on the marketing, Mr. Benn (Mitch, not Rowan Atkinson in this case) had mugs produced sporting the lyrics, one of which sits beside me as I type.
‘Dennis Potter Cbeebies Quatermass Two Ronnies The Thick Of It Radio 3 Open University’ may not be among the greatest lyrics ever, but they indicate several reasons for pride in one of our few remaining ‘national’ institutions.
If Auntie isn’t quite what she once was, what with some people taking far too much money off her and others doing some really bad things, her tendency to overspend on silly things when her pension doesn’t buy as much as it used to, she remains perhaps the only bit of glue holding these islands and its society together.
Readers may have already guessed that the above digressive hyperbole is designed to disguise a somewhat thin review. Making News is a workmanlike production with occasional shafts of sunlight, although it clearly borrows from a range of genre (but that’s the BBC for you). If you have time to be fairly harmlessly entertained over lunchtime, you could certainly travel further on the Fringe and fare far worse.
Warning for the time constrained: although the running time is stated as being one hour fifteen minutes, on the day seen the performance ran to nearer ninety minutes, not including the seating and exiting of a large audience.
Runs 2 - 25 Aug, 1pm