About 10 years ago comedians would loudly complain on chat shows about the lack of "characters" in British politics who are ripe for satire.Whilst the amount of "characters" have come back with a vengeance over the last few years,comedians have struggled to find a footing in the increasingly crazy world of politics.Finding Anthony Atamanuik fully-embodied impression of Donald Trump to be "big league", (with Atamanuik even including Trump's most subtle hand movements into his performance.) I decided to see Kevin Bishop take on the biggest British political figure of 2016.
The plot:
After being one of the main campaigners for the UK to vote for Brexit, UKIP leader Nigel Farage announces that he is stepping down from the party,in order to get his life back. Followed by a documentary crew,Farage celebrates the vote by spending time drinking gallons of booze in his country pub.As he tries to live a "normal" life,Farage starts to feel the cold of the political wilderness.
View on the film:
Re-enacting Farage's 89th resignation speech, Kevin Bishop's wears the UKIP wax jacket with Nigel's trademark gurning. Although his voice is a pitch too high,Bishop fills his impression with the smoked UKIPpers of Farage's most attention-grabbing body language,from the stomp that Nigel walks down the road with,to Bishop brilliantly tapping the small head-butts Farage uses to emphasis key points in speeches.
Rushing to change the ending after a punch-up during the leadership election pushed UKIP even deeper (is that possible?) into farce,the screenplay by Alan Connor & Shaun Pye takes the moc-doc route to oddly skip over the most, bombastic side of Farage,to instead paint him as a looser in the wilderness,who has had no effect on UK politics. Airing a week and a half before the US election,the screenplay by Connor and Pye dies the moment it leaps out of the ocean,due to the lack of focusing on Farage's personality leading to running gags such as Nigel's tall tale that Donald Trump will win (oh my sides!) and vicious, swearing outbursts which run completely against the dim, unaware "loser" that Bishop creates,which leads to this being a real knock-off Nigel.
The plot:
After being one of the main campaigners for the UK to vote for Brexit, UKIP leader Nigel Farage announces that he is stepping down from the party,in order to get his life back. Followed by a documentary crew,Farage celebrates the vote by spending time drinking gallons of booze in his country pub.As he tries to live a "normal" life,Farage starts to feel the cold of the political wilderness.
View on the film:
Re-enacting Farage's 89th resignation speech, Kevin Bishop's wears the UKIP wax jacket with Nigel's trademark gurning. Although his voice is a pitch too high,Bishop fills his impression with the smoked UKIPpers of Farage's most attention-grabbing body language,from the stomp that Nigel walks down the road with,to Bishop brilliantly tapping the small head-butts Farage uses to emphasis key points in speeches.
Rushing to change the ending after a punch-up during the leadership election pushed UKIP even deeper (is that possible?) into farce,the screenplay by Alan Connor & Shaun Pye takes the moc-doc route to oddly skip over the most, bombastic side of Farage,to instead paint him as a looser in the wilderness,who has had no effect on UK politics. Airing a week and a half before the US election,the screenplay by Connor and Pye dies the moment it leaps out of the ocean,due to the lack of focusing on Farage's personality leading to running gags such as Nigel's tall tale that Donald Trump will win (oh my sides!) and vicious, swearing outbursts which run completely against the dim, unaware "loser" that Bishop creates,which leads to this being a real knock-off Nigel.