Latest news with #political satire
CNN
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
All-star roster of comedians show solidarity with Stephen Colbert in first ‘Late Show' after cancellation
Stephen Colbert gained a little help from his friends and late-night rivals on Monday, his first night back on 'The Late Show' since announcing that CBS is ending the legendary show. NBC's Jimmy Fallon, HBO's John Oliver, and Comedy Central's Jon Stewart were among the faces in the 'Late Show' crowd during a spoof of the now-famous 'Coldplay cam.' The fellow comedians didn't speak and they didn't have to: Being there was the point. The 'Late Show' cancellation raised concerns about the future of late-night comedy — and about something bigger. Are big TV networks going to keep supporting political satire and free speech at a time when President Trump's campaign of retribution is rattling corporate America? 'Some people see this show going away as a sign of something truly dire,' Colbert acknowledged Monday night. 'And while I am a big fan of me, I don't necessarily agree with that statement,' he said. 'Because we here at 'The Late Show' never saw our job as changing anything other than how you felt at the end of the day.' He also made some jokes about CBS saying the show was ending for 'purely financial' reasons. Through humor, he raised an eyebrow at news reports about the show becoming unprofitable, though he didn't directly dispute that. 'Folks, I'm going to go ahead and say it: Cancel culture has gone too far,' he quipped. After the 'Coldplay cam' spoof, which was led by Lin-Manuel Miranda and 'Weird Al' Yankovic, Colbert pretended that CBS had just cancelled the song because it lost money. The cameos were a testament to Colbert's long-lasting relationships in the TV industry. Fallon and his NBC colleague Seth Meyers were seated together. Bravo late-night host Andy Cohen sat with his best friend, CNN's Anderson Cooper. Actors Adam Sandler and Christopher McDonald were there with Robert Smigel and his Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Beyond the partisan arguments about whether anti-Trump comics are funny is a broader fear about institutions caving to Trump and removing room for dissent. There is a long history of American TV networks giving comics space to poke politicians and even network executives in the eye, despite the potential ramifications. Fans feel that tradition is under threat now. Outside the 'Late Show' studio, the Ed Sullivan Theater, on Monday, pro-Colbert and anti-Trump protesters held up signs criticizing CBS for cancelling the show. One sign read, 'Silencing comedians is no joke.' Another read, 'Colbert forever.' Stewart spoke out about it from his own television perch, 'The Daily Show,' on Monday night. Both shows are owned by the same company, Paramount Global, which has been in a perilous political position in recent months. Colbert catapulted to fame on Stewart's show twenty years ago; the two men have remained friends ever since; and Stewart is now an executive producer of Colbert's 'Late Show,' so he has some visibility into the situation. 'If you're trying to figure out why Stephen's show is ending, I don't think the answer can be found in some smoking gun email or phone call from Trump to CBS executives, or in CBS's QuickBooks spreadsheets on the financial health of late night,' Stewart said on-air. 'I think the answer in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America's institutions at this very moment — institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic hair-doodling commander in chief,' he said. Stewart, whose 'Daily Show' contract expires at the end of this year, added, 'This is not the moment to give in. I'm not giving in! I'm not going anywhere — I think.' Stewart also had a profane message for Paramount and other media companies: 'If you believe, as corporations or as networks, you can make yourselves so innocuous, that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on the boy king's radar, why will anyone watch you, and you are f***ing wrong.' 'The Late Show' has been a cornerstone of the CBS programming schedule for decades, so fans and industry followers were shocked when the network announced its cancellation last Thursday. Top executives at CBS said it was an 'agonizing' decision but one that was unrelated to 'other matters happening at Paramount.' In other words, the merger. Paramount has been attempting to merge with Skydance Media, which means billions of dollars and some big egos are on the line. However, the deal requires approval from the Trump administration, and the review process has been taking longer than usual, which has raised concerns about political interference. Earlier this month, while Colbert and 'The Late Show' were on a mid-summer break, Paramount settled Trump's legally dubious lawsuit against CBS News by agreeing to pay $16 million toward his future presidential library. The settlement was widely criticized, and Colbert joined the chorus when he returned from vacation last week, likening the payoff to a 'big fat bribe.' Two days after that telecast, Colbert was informed that CBS was retiring 'The Late Show' franchise. The move will take effect next May, when Colbert's contract expires and the broadcast TV season ends. Colbert referred to the settlement again on Monday night's show. He cited the media leaks indicating that the 'Late Show' was losing 'between $40 million and $50 million a year.' 'Forty million's a big number,' Colbert said. 'I could see us losing $24 million, but where would Paramount have possibly spent the other $16 million… oh, yeah.' Meantime, the founding host of 'The Late Show,' David Letterman, weighed in on the franchise's retirement on Monday by publishing to his YouTube channel a 20-minute highlight reel of his past jokes about CBS. The video caption read: 'You can't spell CBS without BS.'
CNN
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
All-star roster of comedians show solidarity with Stephen Colbert in first ‘Late Show' after cancellation
Stephen Colbert gained a little help from his friends and late-night rivals on Monday, his first night back on 'The Late Show' since announcing that CBS is ending the legendary show. NBC's Jimmy Fallon, HBO's John Oliver, and Comedy Central's Jon Stewart were among the faces in the 'Late Show' crowd during a spoof of the now-famous 'Coldplay cam.' The fellow comedians didn't speak and they didn't have to: Being there was the point. The 'Late Show' cancellation raised concerns about the future of late-night comedy — and about something bigger. Are big TV networks going to keep supporting political satire and free speech at a time when President Trump's campaign of retribution is rattling corporate America? 'Some people see this show going away as a sign of something truly dire,' Colbert acknowledged Monday night. 'And while I am a big fan of me, I don't necessarily agree with that statement,' he said. 'Because we here at 'The Late Show' never saw our job as changing anything other than how you felt at the end of the day.' He also made some jokes about CBS saying the show was ending for 'purely financial' reasons. Through humor, he raised an eyebrow at news reports about the show becoming unprofitable, though he didn't directly dispute that. 'Folks, I'm going to go ahead and say it: Cancel culture has gone too far,' he quipped. After the 'Coldplay cam' spoof, which was led by Lin-Manuel Miranda and 'Weird Al' Yankovic, Colbert pretended that CBS had just cancelled the song because it lost money. The cameos were a testament to Colbert's long-lasting relationships in the TV industry. Fallon and his NBC colleague Seth Meyers were seated together. Bravo late-night host Andy Cohen sat with his best friend, CNN's Anderson Cooper. Actors Adam Sandler and Christopher McDonald were there with Robert Smigel and his Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Beyond the partisan arguments about whether anti-Trump comics are funny is a broader fear about institutions caving to Trump and removing room for dissent. There is a long history of American TV networks giving comics space to poke politicians and even network executives in the eye, despite the potential ramifications. Fans feel that tradition is under threat now. Outside the 'Late Show' studio, the Ed Sullivan Theater, on Monday, pro-Colbert and anti-Trump protesters held up signs criticizing CBS for cancelling the show. One sign read, 'Silencing comedians is no joke.' Another read, 'Colbert forever.' Stewart spoke out about it from his own television perch, 'The Daily Show,' on Monday night. Both shows are owned by the same company, Paramount Global, which has been in a perilous political position in recent months. Colbert catapulted to fame on Stewart's show twenty years ago; the two men have remained friends ever since; and Stewart is now an executive producer of Colbert's 'Late Show,' so he has some visibility into the situation. 'If you're trying to figure out why Stephen's show is ending, I don't think the answer can be found in some smoking gun email or phone call from Trump to CBS executives, or in CBS's QuickBooks spreadsheets on the financial health of late night,' Stewart said on-air. 'I think the answer in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America's institutions at this very moment — institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic hair-doodling commander in chief,' he said. Stewart, whose 'Daily Show' contract expires at the end of this year, added, 'This is not the moment to give in. I'm not giving in! I'm not going anywhere — I think.' Stewart also had a profane message for Paramount and other media companies: 'If you believe, as corporations or as networks, you can make yourselves so innocuous, that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on the boy king's radar, why will anyone watch you, and you are f***ing wrong.' 'The Late Show' has been a cornerstone of the CBS programming schedule for decades, so fans and industry followers were shocked when the network announced its cancellation last Thursday. Top executives at CBS said it was an 'agonizing' decision but one that was unrelated to 'other matters happening at Paramount.' In other words, the merger. Paramount has been attempting to merge with Skydance Media, which means billions of dollars and some big egos are on the line. However, the deal requires approval from the Trump administration, and the review process has been taking longer than usual, which has raised concerns about political interference. Earlier this month, while Colbert and 'The Late Show' were on a mid-summer break, Paramount settled Trump's legally dubious lawsuit against CBS News by agreeing to pay $16 million toward his future presidential library. The settlement was widely criticized, and Colbert joined the chorus when he returned from vacation last week, likening the payoff to a 'big fat bribe.' Two days after that telecast, Colbert was informed that CBS was retiring 'The Late Show' franchise. The move will take effect next May, when Colbert's contract expires and the broadcast TV season ends. Colbert made reference to the settlement again on Monday night's show. He cited the media leaks indicating that the 'Late Show' was losing 'between $40 million and $50 million a year.' 'Forty million's a big number,' Colbert said. 'I could see us losing $24 million, but where would Paramount have possibly spent the other $16 million… oh, yeah.' Meantime, the founding host of 'The Late Show,' David Letterman, weighed in on the franchise's retirement on Monday by publishing to his YouTube channel a 20-minute highlight reel of his past jokes about CBS. The video caption read: 'You can't spell CBS without BS.'
The Guardian
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Estate review – Adeel Akhtar is unmissable as ferociously ambitious MP
Adeel Akhtar has become a giant of the stage in a few recent fell swoops, it seems. Certainly his creepingly explosive turn in Shaan Sahota's debut drama is unmissable. It carries this first play, almost eclipsing its imperfections. Better known for his screen work, he shone darkly in Benedict Andrews' The Cherry Orchard last year as Chekhov's peasant-stock merchant with a chip on his shoulder, Lopakhin. Angad, a British-Sikh politician hungry for the top job, is a self-made man too, or so he insists, even if he went to Harrow and Oxford: he calls himself the son of an immigrant baggage handler although his father went on to become a property magnate (and slum landlord, it is suggested) before his unexpected death. That death hails in the explosions of this drama. Angad has also inherited all his father's wealth in a will that leaves nothing to his two sisters, Malicka (Shelley Conn) and Gyan (Thusitha Jayasundera), the latter having been the most dutiful of the siblings. Akhtar rises into his part, first unassuming and then viper-like, to loom over this family drama cum political play. The action first swivels between the two, with Chloe Lamford's set rearranging itself from the casual opulence of Angad's home to the white-collar functionalism of his office. It is exciting writing, fast and funny in its political satire, if clunky in plotting, with interludes of drum'n'bass (music composed by Asaf Zohar) that captures the throb and power-hunger of Angad's ambition. Snappily directed by Daniel Raggett, there are brilliant performances across the board. But there is too much stuffed in, jostling for air. Angad's sisters dispute their father's will, urging their brother to split the inheritance equally as he once promised. Angad resists, engaging in his own political battles. Slowly, their father's toxic legacy is exposed and the wrangle over his will comes to signify misogyny, control, betrayal. Political satire in the Commons captures the cut and thrust of political scheming but in approximate, over-familiar ways. Parliamentarians are referred to by the name of their Oxford college, Angad's communication's adviser (Helena Wilson) is amusing but derivative, while the bullying whip, Ralph (Humphrey Ker), seems to be doing an impression of Peter Capaldi in The Thick of It. It is funnier in the gurdwara where a funeral becomes a political opportunity. But the biggest hole is that none of it resembles the politics of today. Angad's race is vaguely referenced but there is no mention of the big issues of our day, including immigration and the connection between race and Britishness, with all the undertones that brings. So it becomes hard to suspend disbelief as Angad rises and rises to power. His final speech is rousing and magnificently delivered. It interrogates whether we hold the self-serving politician of colour to different, better, values. Do we need Angad to hide his ambition in order to be acceptable? This question is lost in the tangle of other themes while some characters seem under-conceived, especially Angad's wife (Dinita Gohil) – the play ducks out from showing us what makes her tick. The scandal on which the political plotline pivots is naive too. There is an equivalence set up between the rule of primogeniture in hereditary peerages and biases against women in Punjabi culture in order to show the double-standards employed against Angad. But the fact that the party gets in a spin over his refusal to overturn his father's will rings a false note. Still, it is a sensational debut, and if the best kind of failure is one that bears too much ambition, there is an admirable kind of over-reaching here, and a great playwright in the making. At the Dorfman theatre, London, until 23 August
The Guardian
15-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The left must learn to take (and make) a joke
George Monbiot manages to achieve something quite remarkable: an essay on the corrosive potential of humour that ignores the decades-long tradition of the left wielding satire like a broadsword (How does the right tear down progressive societies? It starts with a joke, 10 July). Did we all dream Spitting Image, Saturday Night Live, Have I Got News for You, Ben Elton, or Jo Brand's 'battery acid' quip about Nigel Farage? The left practically invented modern political satire as we know it – and rightly so. Holding power to account through ridicule is not only legitimate but essential. But suddenly, when humour points the other way, it becomes seditious? Dangerous? Please. Humour is neither inherently leftwing nor rightwing – it is anti-hypocrisy, anti-power and often subversive. To suggest that jokes from the right (which I accept are sometimes crass, reductive or tribal) are somehow uniquely dangerous while ignoring the gleeful savagery historically dished out to Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, George Bush or more recently Donald Trump, is not analysis – it's tribal whingeing. What truly undermines progressive societies is the retreat from self-awareness. The idea that 'our' humour is noble and 'theirs' is insidious. The moment any movement begins to believe it has a monopoly on moral legitimacy and irony, it's already drifting toward parody. A healthy society can laugh at itself from all angles. If you're afraid of jokes, maybe it's not the comedians who need to be challenged but the fragility of the ideas being ButlerAnstey, Leicestershire Contra George Monbiot, isn't the real problem with the left precisely that we have lost the ability to mock our enemies? Don't we need more venomous satire of our own – fighting fire with fire? The Guardian's own Martin Rowson is a great example: relentless, scabrous and merciless towards those who themselves show no mercy. Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce and Jo Brand all used humour as a thought experiment about how our society could be otherwise. Anyone who has seen Eddie Murphy's 'first black president' ducking and dodging assassin's bullets as he makes a speech will have seen the racial dynamics of the US embodied in a really funny comedy routine. Being permanently offended rather than seeking to cause offence in return shows how house-trained and academicised the left has become. If 'humour permits obscene ideas to seep into the range of the possible', we need to recognise that socialism is the obscene idea that capitalism seeks to repress and try to cause some offence of our MossLondon George Monbiot is right to highlight the right's use of humour to normalise their odious ideas, but progressives have used humour in a similar way to normalise ideas that those they are targeting find hard to accept. Oscar Wilde was a master at this, with his plays attended in droves and loved by the very people he was lampooning. Did they recognise themselves on stage, resplendent in their pomposity and condescension? Subconsciously at least, they must have, and I suspect he did as much to change society for the better as anyone. It is, as Monbiot points out, a powerful tactic and one that we can continue to employ against those who would use it against UribeLlandrindod Wells, Powys Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
