Tuesday 19 April 2011

Littlejohn admits he hasn't got 'enough material'

Two days ago, the Mandrake column in the Daily Telegraph said:

Just as Mike Yarwood, an acclaimed impersonator of Harold Wilson in his day, never really appeared to get over Margaret Thatcher's election as prime minister, Rory Bremner is suffering at the hands of the Coalition.

The amiable comic tells Mandrake that his disappearance from our television screens since David Cameron won power has not been by choice.

And today, Richard Littlejohn reveals:

My sympathies are with Rory Bremner, who says he is having an enforced sabbatical from television.

Just as Mike Yarwood’s career nose-dived when Harold Wilson departed the scene, so Rory is struggling to survive the demise of New Labour.

Where does he get it from?

In the Mandrake piece, Bremner says:

"It would be great to do more television, but it's all gone very quiet on that front and I don't know why that is," he says. "I must have upset somebody somewhere. I'm having what you might call a slightly enforced sabbatical."

This isn't quite the same as what Littlejohn claims, who says it's all to do with the absence of recognisable characters:

How do you do an impression of, say, Andrew Lansley? And if you did, would anyone recognise it?

Why did Littlejohn pick on Lansley, in particular? From Mandrake:

Happily, however, he has a stage tour coming up, but Andrew Lansley, the health secretary who has been much in the news recently, looks unlikely to be included among the impersonations.

However, Littlejohn admits something that some of us have suspected for some time:

There simply isn’t enough material to fill an hour of airtime...

As a columnist, I’m having the same problem.

Littlejohn? Struggling to find enough material to fill his columns?

Surely not?

2 comments:

  1. From Mirriam Webster

    Material (adj.)

    1: a (1) : relating to, derived from, or consisting of matter; especially : physical <the material world> (2) : bodily <material needs>

    b (1) : of or relating to matter rather than form <material cause> (2) : of or relating to the subject matter of reasoning; especially : empirical <material knowledge>

    2: : having real importance or great consequences <facts material to the investigation>

    So the question is, has Littlejohn ever had any 'material'?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Littlejohn writing strategy

    1) Have assistant look through copy of Daily mail
    2) Pick a story
    3) Write it again, but add 'you couldn't make it up' at the end
    4)???
    5)Profit!

    ReplyDelete

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