The Catalyst
Ideas with a spark, energy, range and the ability to start things.
Jan Ravens earns The Catalyst by treating impressions as diagnosis rather than mimicry, weaponising comedy against power itself. Her readings of leaders like May and Truss expose what she calls their tragic flaw, framing satire as giving people back the power.
“Was really sort of up his street. So he's actually added this bit onto the Macmillan monologue and it sort of went on much longer. And he added this bit on at the end where he said, you know, when I've nothing better to do, I like to go to my local theatre and watch a bunch of sappy, urgent, vibrant young satirists with a stupid great gri…”
“Is there something, an example in the script that you felt, no, we're not going to do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sometimes. Yes, I have to be the misogyny police. I'll give an example from Newswatch, which is not deliberately sat at. But, you know, we get viewers comments in. And it's really interesting.”
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, Trump, I think, is like, yeah, he's sort of just on a single kind of line, isn't he? There's no Yeah, on Dead Ring is we do a thing where we have Boris kind of trying to be sort of articulate and sensible and then you know and then there's a and bad Boris comes in and starts going, you know, knickers and totting and ta…”
“What I would say, because I felt like I couldn't be just a total brown noser, I had a real think about it, and I have to say I think that for somebody of my generation, when I was 16, brass eye came out, and specifically the episode that was cake, it's a made up drug.”
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy: “From Theresa May to Liz Truss - how impressionist Jan Ravens exposes flaws of the powerful”
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