Spitting Image: Production Focus

RTS London Podcast

Skewering the politicians and celebrities who need it the most! Join the Spitting Image team for a look behind the revival of this bitingly funny sketch show.
Described as “one of the most innovative and daring television programmes ever conceived” by the BFI, Spitting Image was first broadcast on ITV all the way back in 1984 and continued to mercilessly caricature the great and the good of British society (and beyond) till 1996.
Now rebooted in 2020 with Boris Johnson, Joe Biden, Donald Trump and XI Jinping leading the global stage, the Royal Family in tabloid turmoil (again) and a new generation of selfie-loving celebrities on our screens, Spitting Image co-creator Roger Law could hardly have chosen a better moment to re-animate his satirical puppets courtesy of the streaming service BritBox. Joined by a whole new batch of celebrated writing talent including Jeff Westbrook (of Futurama and the Simpsons fame), and a cast of characters from the UK, America and around the world, no one is safe from satirical roasting.
With widespread critical and social media acclaim, the return of Spitting Image has delivered record subscribers for BritBox UK, the BBC and ITV created streaming platform, and a 4.4 million audience for ITV with a one-off US Election Special, the highest Saturday night ratings for at that time in four years (one of ITV’s biggest Saturday night ABC1 audiences of 2020). Across official social media channels, the new Spitting Image series content has been hugely popular with over 200 million views globally and three No. 1 trending videos on YouTube. The show is also a success internationally and it was announced earlier this year that Sky Germany will bring a bespoke Spitting Image show to German audiences.
Revealing the extraordinary technical achievement of the series, join the RTS London Centre as they bring together the creative team behind the hit to talk about the challenges of updating a British classic for modern, global audiences, keeping up with an increasingly faster 24/7 news cycle and… maybe even showing off a few never before seen surprises in advance of the next series this autumn.
Host
Benji Wilson - Journalist and TV Critic, Private Eye
Panel:
Roger Law - Co-Creator and Executive Producer
Jeff Westbrook - Showrunnner and Executive Producer
Nana Hughes - Commissioning Executive, BritBox
Matt Forde - Writer and Voice Actor
Bert Tyler-Moore - Consulting Producer and Writer
Producer: Damien Ashton-Wellman
Barnestorming Production for RTS London