Charlie Brooker compares Boris Johnson to Keith Lemon: ‘We’ve got a s*** comedy character running the country’

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

Charlie Brooker has compared Boris Johnson to Leigh Francis’s comedy character Keith Lemon.

The Black Mirror creator, who is promoting his new interactive cartoon Cat Burglar, was talking about his career mixing comedy with sci-fi and dystopia when he made the comments.

He was explaining that, while he enjoys the presence of comedy on TV screens or on the page, he wishes it had not entered politics.

“It is bizarre that we’ve got Keith Lemon running the country,” Brooker told The Guardian.

“We’ve got a character, a s*** comedy character, running the country. And we let that happen. Our generation let that happen. They are us! They’re our peers. F***ing hell.”

Lemon – blonde, moustachioed and crude-talking – is a character who first emerged in Leigh Francis’s sketch show, Bo’ Selecta! Francis hosts his panel show Celebrity Juice in the role of Lemon.

Brooker has long been a critic of the Tory party. In 2020, he said that Johnson should not be immune to criticism for his handling of the coronavirus crisis just because he personally contracted the disease.

During the first lockdown, he also tweeted a number of scathing takes on the scandal surrounding the prime minister’s former special adviser Dominic Cummings and his trip to Barnard Castle.

As part of his $100m deal with Netflix, Brooker’s latest project – out on the streamer now – is Cat Burglar, an edgy, interactive trivia cartoon that challenges viewers to answer questions correctly to help Rowdy the Cat evade Peanut the Security Pup and steal some prized paintings.