A current UK TV series that I was completely unaware of until this week is Twenty Twelve – a brilliantly insightful piece of satirical comedy that follows the imaginary trials and tribulations of the event “Deliverance” team behind the London 2012 Olympic Games. (Hugh Bonneville, the actor who played the Lord of Downton Abbey, coincidentally heads the cast of this series too)
Having organized my share of events in the past, some of the situations and scenarios that Twenty Twelve dramatises are totally believable, and the dead pan delivery of the script by the superb ensemble cast make it laugh-out-loud funny (which is OK at home, but less appropriate on a British Airways plane when everyone else is asleep!).
I do not think there is ANY other country in the world that would allow/accept/tolerate a publically-funded organization (the BBC) making a comedy about how many mistakes and cock-ups a country could possibly make in the lead up to the most prestigious sporting event on the planet. What makes this even more astounding is that Seb Coe, the head of the actual London Olympic Organising Committee, even agreed to play a cameo role in one of the episodes, and the antics/opinions/idiosyncrasies of the colourful London mayor, Boris Johnson, is a consistent humorous theme running throughout every episode.
This really is TV at its best - and something that makes me proud that I come from a country as creative and self-confident as the UK.
Thank you BBC for making this, and thank you BA for sharing it - as one of the official sponsors of the games, I would have understood if BA had chosen not to.
TWENTY TWELVE
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00yw1t9
