This week’s listening material in the car has been the BBC Radio 4 series Absolute Power. The series stars Stephen Fry and John Bird as former BBC executives who lose their BBC jobs and start up a “government media relations” firm. The core conceit is that they take on “image relaunches” and media campaigns for things that are impossible to put a good spin on, while also doing “hush hush” dirty tricks stuff for the “New Labour” government. For instance, in the first series the assignments include improving the perception of the Conservative Party (this is in 2000, when everyone hates the Tories), getting a Socialist elected Mayor of London, and increasing the Church of England’s “market share”.
The series is a bit formulaic, in that there are definite set pieces in each episode, and the structure of each episode is identical, but the material is quite funny, and of course Stephen Fry is tremendously entertaining as total bastard Martin Prentiss. (John Bird, as Martin McCabe, delivers a lower-key performance that anchors the show.) You do need to know a bit about British politics and pop culture (especially since 2000) to get all the gags.
I’m into the third series of the four that were produced for radio at the moment, and will probably finish the run by the end of the weekend. I’m making arrangements to (in a totally legal, and legitimate manner, of course) get my hands on the two seasons of the television show that was based on the radio plays, with Fry and Bird in the same roles.
If you want to check out the radio plays, all four seasons are available for download as MP3s.
