Charlie Brooker is well suited to the pandemic. After all, he has spent the past decade or so producing the immensely successful dystopian series, Black Mirror. Yet it is his satirical show Wipe which has caught the attention of the public amid Covid-19.
When first approached by the BBC to write a coronavirus inspired version of the show, Brooker declined. He said that the three-year break from the show, meant “I thought, ‘Thank God for that.’ Every year I spent December and most of November having to wade through all this depressing footage. I was like, ‘I don’t miss that.’”
After a couple weeks, Brooker changed his mind. Abundantly aware how difficult it was to make television amid the pandemic (indeed, Brooker was forced to suspend production on a new Philomena Cunk series following the travel ban) he decided that producing a show meant employment for those who work for Broke and Bones, a production company run with Annabel Jones, his Black Mirror co-producer.
Brooker was able to film from home, likewise other contributors, Diane Morgan and Al Campbell. Konnie Huq, former Blue Peter presenter and Brooker’s wife is also well versed in the television world and the pair’s au pair, Bryony Wigram, has just graduated from film school. Of this, Brooker says: “we have a qualified cameraperson with us during lockdown,” continuing that: “As a format this is well suited to isolation. It’s not as if I would normally have run down a big staircase with applause and troupes of dancers and a band playing.”
The show, which began in 2006, is, according to Brooker: “partly me taking the piss out of the aspects of the past two months you can take the piss out of. Covering some of the coverage, some of the political response, silly things about what life is like at the moment.”
Brooker concludes that, in this edition of the show: “I am probably less nihilistic than I normally am, I don’t know that that would be the right note to strike. I hope it’s cathartic.”
Antiviral Wipe can be viewed here.
