Caroline Frost: Twenty Twenty Six proves that satire is not dead
Add Twenty Twenty Six to your watchlist It was the great Tom Lehrer who said, when Henry Kissinger was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, that “satire was dead”. This era’s professional wags were similarly minded to put down their pens after US President Donald Trump was given the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize ahead of this year’s World Cup. There is a lot that is wrong with this year’s tournament and the US’s co-hosting of it (I seem to remember writing a similar sentence in 2022 about Qatar), and I’m wary of wringing too much joy from the absurdities that have already abounded, such as US “star striker” Patrick Agyemang being ruled out through injury after pulling a hamstring for Derby County against Stoke City or, even more brow-raisingly, the nominated “Gay Pride match” being that between Iran and Egypt. What is there left for satirists to do? The answer, it transpires, is to insert some singularly British idiocy into the mix. Fourteen long years ago, in simpler days on the eve of the London …
