Charlie Brooker, the genius behind the hit show Black Mirror, has been around for a while now. While he’s most famous for the Netflix show, he’s also brought us fantastic comedic shows like the mockumentaries of Cunk on…, the zombie show Dead Set, and the satirical news shows Newswipe and The Weekly Wipe.
All of his shows are brilliant. They take their subjects to the edge of what’s acceptable and show you things you’ve never seen before (but are frequently copied afterward). Dead Set, for example, asks the question, “What if a zombie outbreak started while a reality show with a quarantined cast was being filmed?” It’s an extremely entertaining comedy horror show.
Sort of like Nathan Barley.
Nathan Barley was a six-episode comedy series written by Brooker in 2005, predating every series I’ve mentioned. When this was released, I freaking loved it, although it didn’t garner a large audience. I thought it was hilarious and ridiculous, thinking the depictions of Barley and friends were farcical.
Now, I know the truth. Almost twenty years later, Nathan Barley is Black Mirror… realized. Truly horrific.
Nathan Barley (Nicholas Burns) is a small-time but burgeoning internet star with his own channel called TrashBat.co.ck (registered in the Cook Islands for obvious childish reasons). He spends most of his time torturing his producer and web designer, Pingu (Ben Whishaw), and uploading the results to the site for impressions.
He is an idiot of the highest magnitude.
Elsewhere, writer for Sugar Ape magazine, Dan Ashcroft (Julian Barratt), writes a provocative article entitled “Rise of the Idiots,” ironically making himself an icon for those idiots. Dan has an heir of superiority, but he’s desperate for cash, even stealing from his documentarian sister, Claire (Claire Keelan), to survive.
Dan Ashcroft is also an idiot. He’s just a different kind of idiot.
Nathan Barley explores the storm created when these two types of idiots meet.
It’s been almost twenty years since the show originally aired, and it’s astounding how much it has accurately predicted.
Nathan Barley is the YouTube star of today. Maybe a little tamer? If you put him and someone like IShowSpeed together, you wouldn’t be able to tell which one was created for satirical purposes. The language he uses is either nonsensical or offensive in nature. When he likes something, it’s “totally f*cking Mexico.” He greets his friends with a profane insult, always with a smile on his face like it’s the normal way to say hello. One of his favorite ways to say goodbye is “Peace and f*cking,” an antithetical instruction. IShowSpeed barks at cameras and offends people constantly. Who’s the real person?
Nathan describes himself as a “self-facilitating media node.” It means he has a studio and equipment he lets people use for a piece of their pie. He takes chances on people because of their talent (or because he’s a horn dog and wants to get in their pants) and takes a percentage of their income and intellectual property. Ever heard of streamer houses like OTK or OfflineTV? That’s the “self-facilitating media node” idea turned up to 11. They even live together! It’s insane!
The more childish, the better. In the world of Nathan Barley, Dan tricks Nathan into getting a stupid haircut, and although it initially causes embarrassment, Nathan’s unearned confidence causes the style to be adopted by the general public. He was an unintentional influencer!
Sugar Ape magazine constantly shows how offensive or controversial they will be for clicks. They change their logo so it appears to say Suga Rape. They have a photo shoot with “underage” models being taken advantage of but with a small print disclaimer saying all models are six years older than their stated ages, and they consented to the photo shoot. Editor Jonatton Yeah? (yes, “Yeah?” is his surname) revels in the attention their magazine receives as a result of the scandal. We live in a world where Twitter lives and breathes divisive opinions in an attempt to go viral. This is where it begins.
It’s scary how many predictions it got right, and this isn’t even half of them.
Nathan Barley also gave some screen time to some fledgling British actors, some of whom are now household names.
Nathan’s web designer is played by the wonderful Ben Whishaw. You may know him from the new James Bond movies as Q, or the voice of Paddington Bear in Paddington and the incredible Paddington 2. In Nathan Barley, he is a meek and anxious man who has been tormented to the edge of a nervous breakdown. Whishaw plays this to perfection.
We have an honest-to-God Avenger! That’s right, Benedict Cumberbatch made guest appearances in this show well before he was cast as Sherlock or Doctor Strange. It’s jarring to see a young Master of the Mystical Arts playing an assistant to an eccentric former Bowie-like popstar. He tries his best to keep him on the short-and-narrow, but copious anxious sweat is spilled.
And then there’s Richard Ayoade before his stint as Moss in the I.T. Crowd. Imagine a cooler but stupider Moss and you’d have his character in Nathan Barley. Like everyone in the show, he is also an idiot.
Mostly, yes. However, it wouldn’t make sense with the same content. The majority of the show came true to a degree, so it would be poking fun at today’s culture. That works, but it wouldn’t be very interesting. If Nathan Barley returned, it would have to evolve for the next generation, and what the frack does that look like?
There is some language used by Nathan and co. that would 100% be changed for modern audiences, lines Brooker wouldn’t cross in this day and age. Some of the vocabulary used by Barley makes him sound like an idiot, yes, but crosses too far over the line of problematic.
Dan Ashcroft preaches the message, “The idiots are winning.” Well, they won. They’re here, and, for the time being, they are not going anywhere. The comedy world of Nathan Barley has arrived, and we’re living in it.
Twenty years ago, Charlie Brooker thought up a world so ridiculous he could never have thought it would come true, but so many of his prophecies have come to pass. I can’t say everything has changed for the worse. Neither can I say it’s changed for the better. It’s different.
But let’s hope Black Mirror doesn’t follow suit. That would not be totally f*cking Mexico!
In the UK, you can stream Nathan Barley on Channel 4 on Demand but there isn’t much choice in other regions. You can find all six episodes on YouTube but I would obviously never condone that.
Keep it foolish. Peace and f*cking.
