Election’s laugh-o-meter in the media

Who’s scoring well on the Election 2011 laugh-o-meter?

The Hour

“Show me the money?” So far, our election campaign has been more like Show Me the Funny, to borrow the title of a dire-sounding UK reality series. That programme featured competing comedians of uncertain ability who had their performances critiqued by tough crowds around the country and a panel of judges. The prize: money, a multi-date tour plus DVD.

Here, we’ve got pretty much the same set-up, only the winning comedian gets to run the country. Scary. Still, the material has killed, so far. Don Brash’s “deceitful bastard” was good, but you’d have to get up earl-eye in the morning to beat Phil Goff as a drunken sailor. Actually, he’s more like the Ancient Mariner, so currently becalmed is Labour’s campaign: “Day after day, day after day,/We stuck, nor breath nor motion;/As idle as a painted ship/Upon a painted ocean …”

John Key scored well on the Election 2011 laugh-o-meter by outlining the specific conditions under which he would be revealed to be the uncle of a monkey. Meanwhile, David Cunliffe discovered the dangers of improv with Paul Henry – anything with Paul Henry – when he blurted about Judith Collins in the context of the extinction of the human race. It was, he admitted on The Nation, “a regretful comment”. Regrettable, too, possibly.

Of course, not everyone sees the funny side or we’d all be Stephen Fry. Robyn Malcolm made headlines for her outspoken MCing of the Greens’ campaign opening: “… we have a leader who seems to be more interested in talking about his cats on the radio, being seen at the rugby and getting on the cover of the Woman’s Weekly. I thought that was my job,” she cracked. She had a go at policies, including a “dispassionate and punitive approach to those in our prisons”.

I don’t think “dispassionate” is quite the word she was after – if truth is the first casualty of war, language is under constant fire at election time. But some of the reaction has been slightly incomprehensible, too. The Herald reported on the “angry star” and her “vitriolic attack” on the Prime Minister. The word “savaged” was used. Twice. “Good grief,” tweeted Malcolm, “hardly vitriol, was wearing pink.”

Which may be the problem. When women get gobby, it’s unseemly and aggressive. Whereas men can get away with anything – see regretful remark by caddie Steve Williams and the dispiriting oeuvre of Paul Henry – and be seen as refreshingly politically incorrect. Except that Phil Goff isn’t a woman, is not wearing much pink and has been accused of being too aggressive as well. Even by that sensitive soul Bill Ralston, who was on The Nation playing right-wing commentator to Brian Edwards’s leftie. Didn’t he used to like a bit of mongrel?

Maybe it’s an Auckland thing. The Dominion Post ran the inexplicably non-outraged headline “Actor Malcolm in Outrageous Form”. After all, she’s not even running. And she’d have to do better than that effort to be more disturbing than many who are.

It’s either a feast or a famine when it comes to television. Suddenly there are so many quality dramas my My Sky is in danger of exploding. I recall defending local television on the basis we could see The Sopranos and Six Feet Under in primetime, free to air. It’s a sign of the times that you now have to pay extra to see them on Sky’s SoHo channel.

So far, I like The Hour. It’s a sort of British television news version of Mad Men, but with a much higher body count. It’s also a corrective to nostalgia for some distant golden age of serious television news. Back in the 50s, matters of public importance gave way to cheery, servile newsreels of “young ladies of distinction enjoying a day at Ascot!”

Young Freddie Lyon (Ben Whishaw) is a working-class journalist out to change the world one proper news show at a time. “More people watch The Sooty Show than watch us,” he rails to the boss of the newsreels. Freddie is a bit naive. “Do you think I should start with the Marx quote?” he wonders, as he heads off to be interviewed for a new, harder programme called The Hour. To Freddie’s disappointment, the producer’s role for the new show goes to a woman (she’s not wearing pink). The presenter is a handsome dolt – some things never change – played by The Wire’s Dominic West. Freddie remains a humble hack.

There’s a British period theatricality to The Hour that doesn’t deliver the moody, subtle pleasures of American cable tele­vision noir at its best. But it’s fun. And it’s timely to be reminded of the downside of getting bland, don’t-worry-your-head-about-that reassurance from media and political leaders when something more bracing is required.

THE HOUR, SoHo Sky 010, Saturday, 8.30pm.