The visits of Keir Starmer and president Zelensky to the Oval Office last week were both agonising to behold, in very different ways. We witnessed two examples of how/how not (opinions vary which was which) to approach the court of what is described memorably vividly in David Mamet’s brilliant 1987 film House Of Games (nothing to do with Richard Osman) as ‘The United States of Kiss My Ass’.
They were a bit like visits to the Wonka factory. Starmer tried so very hard to be ever-so-grateful best behaviour thank-you-for-having-me golden boy Charlie Bucket; while Zelensky went in as Veruca Salt: ‘I want a party with rooms full of laughter, ten thousand tons of ice cream!’. I found both excruciating.
The next time I overindulge and need an urgent purgative, I’ll only have to call to mind Starmer’s lickspittle letter from the King. The ceremonial passing of this royal scroll was intended to flatter Donald Trump’s colossal ego. It looked to me very much like the opening scene of an episode of the 1960s Batman TV series, which often involved the derailing of such a civic occasion. As the letter was handed over, it should have emitted purple smoke and party poppers, at which point The Joker would’ve sprung giggling from the skylight and bundled Starmer into a sack and away, leaving a dumbstruck JD Vance gasping ‘Begorrah – the Clown Prince of crime!’, with Trump turning to stare meaningfully at the batphone.
At the other end of the scale from this maximum genuflection, Zelensky reminded me of my days in a job I had long ago at the Law Courts. Defendants were instructed by their solicitors to just keep your trap shut in the dock, tug the old forelock, take whatever they could, and save the chat ‘til later. They rarely did.
Trump and Vance could, and should, have reacted to Zelensky going off-piste by reacting in the manner of the late Queen: smiling and nodding and saying ‘How interesting’. They should have waited until the doors were closed on the TV cameras to engage in any rough housing.
But no.
Everybody was awful. It was the kind of event that leaves you rictus-grinning and wishing you were anywhere else, like being present during a big family row in somebody else’s house.
And it was the kind of excruciating TV that we rarely see nowadays, but which was once commonplace. Jim’ll Fix It is unwatchable for obvious reasons, but the post-fix chats in the studio were always unbearable. A bemused child totally lost in this strange situation: ‘Say thank you!’ ‘Don’t clap yourself!’ ‘Sit up!’
Nervous quiz contestants were another feature of vintage TV; gulping, sweating, eyes darting from side to side under hot blinding lights. People weren’t used to appearing on TV; the etiquette of the thing was not so clear in the days when it was still a comparatively recent innovation. This is captured brilliantly in Peter Serafinowicz’s comedy Look Around You, and by how the swaggering ultra-lairy Patsy freezes on live TV in Ab Fab. I know how Patsy felt. On my rare forays in the medium, I try to relax and forget but the three words DO NOT SWEAR are pounding in rhythm with my pulses.
The generation gap of my childhood and adolescence was more a chasm. The curated niches of today’s abundant cultural offerings were unknown. Everything came down the same very narrow funnel. Pop music belonged only to young people, but there wasn’t really an infrastructure around it on TV. Before the Brits we had the Nationwide British Rock and Pop Awards, which were presented by the hip n’ happening likes of Bob Wellings and Sarah Kennedy. It was hard not to die inside when Hugh Scully was discussing the Ramones. And at the end of ceremonies, an amiable buffer of an old fellow with a huge red setter used to wander foggily on stage like Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle. I’ve still no idea who he was. But it was tormentingly awkward.
The acme of all this was the 1976 confrontation between the Sex Pistols and Bill Grundy. I saw this going out live, and even aged eight I wanted to curl up and die.
Then there was Roddy Llewellyn on Noel Edmonds’ Multi-Coloured Swap Shop. There was palpable tension in the studio in case one of the brats invited to quiz him on garden design mentioned Princess Margaret.
Younger people unused to such events were possibly more shocked by the Zelensky incident. A lot of the reaction seemed to be coming from horror at seeing right out in public what normally happens behind closed doors (as you can tell from any candid political memoir). It was like seeing people on the toilet.
We often despair of politicians fudging and obfuscating and being blandly polite. This throwback to the TV of my youth was a reminder that we have such rules for a reason.
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