Latitude 2019
Charlie Brooker
Charlie Brooker
Genre: Chat Show
Venue: Latitude Festival Film and Music Tent
Festival: Latitude
Low Down
Charlie Brooker chats with Black Mirror’s producer about the show.
Review
The massive queue for Charlie Brooker, many of whom got turned away in a cloud of sadness, is a testament to his popularity. He is a creative powerhouse and has remained in groundbreaking territory for longer than most. But none of those people are fans of his chat show or his improvised comedy. Charlie Brooker doesn’t improvise, or chat. He is an excellent writer and a good performer so all these people must have assumed that he would make an interesting chatter. I did.
We were wrong. Together with Black Mirror producer, Annabel Jones, they made a mildly engaging and likeable pair. They gave us some fairly interesting insights into the creative processes behind making the series (the making of Bandersnatch was evidently such an ordeal that they both visibly shuddered at the thought of making more interactive cinema) but only interesting enough to put in brackets. They made a few jokes, and because the crowd was overwhelmingly on their side, they got a few laughs. But overall the content was the sort of stuff that only a Brooker completist would care about.
The format was questions and answers, so a certain portion of blame for the dreary conversation can be laid at the feet of the audience and in this respect Kim was singularly exempt. Kim was the last person to ask a question at a point when everyone was thinking “ugh, not another question”. He stood up and said “I’m an actor, and I was wondering how I can get my CV to your casting director” while proudly waving a piece of paper above his head. Jones bravely took on the question by rambling on about the casting process in general, but Kim was still standing there, refusing to be ignored.
Brooker, squinting into the audience said “Is that… is your CV laminated?” Kim, who had not given up the microphone, said yes it was.
“Why have you laminated your CV?”
“For safety! Actually, can we just get this to the front?” and Kim crowdsurfed his CV into the hands of Brooker and Jones where it arrived safely thanks to excellent lamination.
I for one will be eagerly awaiting the release of series 6 of Black Mirror, and scouring the credits for Kims.
