Posted in: BBC, TV | Tagged: cancel culture, Douglas is Cancelled, steven moffat

Douglas is Cancelled: Steven Moffat Discusses Cancel Culture Comedy

Steven Moffat and producer Sue Vertue discuss the relevance and immediacy of their new satirical BBC series Douglas is Cancelled.

Steven Moffat and his producer and wife Sue Virtue are on the promo circuit for Douglas is Cancelled, his new satirical comedy series about a national TV newsman who runs afoul of Cancel Culture and faces total ruin in both his life and career. Yes, it's a comedy.  Moffat began writing the limited series back in 2018, before most people, including him, even heard of the term "cancel culture," but it's really just a new name for the age-old campaign of shaming and ruining a public figure. "At the time I wrote this, I wouldn't have known the expression," Moffat told Variety. "Obviously, once I did, I co-opted it straight into the title."

In Douglas is Cancelled, Hugh Bonneville, he of Downton Abbey, plays Douglas Bellowes, anchorman of a national TV news programme, who says the wrong thing at the wrong time in front of lots of people at a wedding and has to scramble to save both his personal and professional lives. Karen Gillan, everyone's favourite Amy Pond from Doctor Who, co-stars as Douglas' ambitious and internet-savvy co-host Madeline who has a choice to make: save him or get a major career boost. "What's funny about this is you don't know what he actually said until the end," Moffat said, keeping that part a mystery to keep the audience guessing. "So you can make up your mind [along the way] whether he should be canceled or not."

Moffat and Vertue weren't afraid of tackling the whole topic of cancel culture since it's currently as hot a topic in the UK as it is in the US. At least two major TV figures from British television recently saw their careers completely cancelled because past (but still shockingly recent) scandals came to light. Moffat insists that Douglas is Cancelled isn't inspired by the recent sagas of BBC newsreader Huw Edwards and ITV morning talk show host Philip Scofield (look them up – they're too exhausting for us to even summarise here). "We know some people who have been canceled," Vertue says. "You know, the stress and the upset and the life-ruining is extraordinary."

"It's a heated topic, and isn't it funny that everyone has exactly the same opinion, really?" he said. Nobody wants to be canceled, but "everybody wants to cancel somebody."

"You can't just not do something" for fear of people's reactions," said Vertue. "It's a great drama, and it's great comedy. It's almost like a sport, but it's got a horrible ending because sooner or later, someone's going to kill themselves."

Bonneville said his performance as Douglas Bellowes was less informed by present-day cancelations than 17th-century writer Samuel Pepys, who was tarred following his clerk being accused of murder. "You can pick examples from every generation," Bonneville said. "Probably, the caveman was chucked out of the cave for saying the wrong thing. If anyone's going to feel responsible for the material, it's Steven," he says. "I'm just an actor, prancing around in tights," Bonneville says that once he read the script, he knew he couldn't turn it down. "I can't think of anyone who would, not when you've got a character as well written and drama as tantalizing and as funny and as ultimately dark as this."

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