By Get into the festive spirit with Death To 2020, a murderously wry mockumentary from Black Mirror creator and connoisseur of lockdown TV, Charlie Brooker. Streaming on Netflix from Sunday, the big-budget brother of Wipe features an all-star cast including Samuel L. Jackson, Lisa Kudrow, Joe Keery, Kumail Nanjiani and Diane Morgan.
Brooker is no stranger to skewering current affairs, so it follows that a year that’s become a parody of itself should provide all this material he needs for a new film. His long-running series Wipe has historically been a cynical fixture of British TV, with series reaching as far back as 2006: we’ve seen Weekly Wipe, News Wipe, and 2016 Wipe over the years.
Back in May, Brooker released Antiviral Wipe (about as close to an antibacterial one as you would want during a pandemic), tackling the UK’s response, 5G conspiracy theories and hand-washing. Antiviral Wipe was a big hit with viewers, widely reported as a furious time-capsule of the first lockdown.
But the greatest Wipe of them all is yet to come. The Black Mirror team are behind his next lockdown offering, and if it’s not quite the dystopian fiction the series offered, then we needn’t worry: we’ve lived it. Death To 2020 goes a little off-kilter from 2018’s choose-your-own-adventure, Bandersnatch, but it’s certain to deliver with a high-profile cast.
We’ve got Kudrow acting as a US politician outside the White House in a nod to the recent election; Jackson playing an informed subject specialist; and Diane Morgan reprising her role as the beloved investigative reporter, Philomena Cunk. Other Brooker favourites and collaborators include USS Callister’s Cristin Milioti and off-camera input from longstanding character Barry Shitpeas, played by co-director Al Campbell.
Whatever you hope to forget this year for, Charlie Brooker and his team are here for a comedy event about ‘the most historic year in history’. Death To 2020 will be available to watch on Netflix from Sunday 27 December.
