Charlie Brooker

Charlton Brooker (born 3 March 1971) is an English television presenter, writer, producer and satirist. He is the creator and co-showrunner of the sci-fi drama anthology series ''Black Mirror'', and has written for comedy series such as ''Brass Eye'', ''The 11 O'Clock Show'' and '' Nathan Barley''.

Brooker started his career as a cartoonist; he produced adverts for the second-hand video game retailer CeX before becoming a journalist for '' PC Zone.'' He has presented a number of television shows, mostly consisting of satirical and biting criticism of modern society and the media, such as '' Screenwipe'', '' Gameswipe'', '' Newswipe'', '' Weekly Wipe'', and ''10 O'Clock Live''. He also wrote the 2008 horror drama series '' Dead Set''. He has written social criticism pieces for ''The Guardian'' and is one of four creative directors of the production company Zeppotron.

Early life

Charlie Brooker was born on 3 March 1971 in Reading, Berkshire. He grew up in a relaxed Quaker household in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Oxfordshire. His parents were fans of the television sitcom '' Bewitched'', and named him Charlton after a character in one episode and his sister Samantha after the series' main character. As a teenager, he first worked as a writer and cartoonist for '' Oink!'', a comic produced in the late 1980s.

After attending Wallingford School, Brooker attended the Polytechnic of Central London (which became the University of Westminster during his final year there) to study for a BA in Media Studies. He says that he did not graduate because his dissertation was written on video games, which was not considered an acceptable topic.

He has listed his comedic influences as Monty Python, '' The Young Ones'', '' Blackadder'', Chris Morris, and Vic Reeves.Desert Island Discs, Charlie Brooker, BBC Radio 4, 7 Jan 2018

Brooker did some early work as a cartoonist, and worked in the video game department of Music and Video Exchange, a retailer in Notting Hill Gate, London. When one of the employees left to found the second-hand retailer CeX, Brooker worked in their first shop and produced cartoon advertisements.

Career

Print

After some of Brooker's CeX cartoons were printed in the magazine '' PC Zone'', he was invited to write for the magazine. His first published review was of the 1997 game '' Fallout''. Brooker wrote for the magazine in the mid and late 1990s. Aside from games reviews, his output included the comic strip "Cybertwats" and a column titled "Sick Notes", where Brooker would insult anyone who wrote in to the magazine – and offered a £50 prize to the best letter. One of Brooker's one-shot cartoons caused the magazine to be pulled from the shelves of many British newsagents. The cartoon was titled "Helmut Werstler's Cruelty Zoo" and professed to be an advert for a theme park created by a Teutonic psychologist for children to take out their violent impulses on animals rather than humans. It was accompanied by photoshopped pictures of children smashing the skulls of monkeys with hammers, jumping on a badger with a pitchfork, and chainsawing an orang-utan, among other things. The original joke was supposed to be at the expense of the ''Tomb Raider'' games, known at the time for the number of animals killed, but the original title, "Lara Croft's Cruelty Zoo", was changed for legal reasons. In October 2008, Brooker and several other ex-writers were invited back to review a game for the 200th issue. Brooker reviewed '' Euro Truck Simulator''.

Brooker began writing a TV review column titled "Screen Burn" for ''The Guardian'' newspaper's Saturday entertainment supplement ''The Guide'' in 2000, a role he continued through to October 2010.

From late 2005, he wrote a regular series of columns in ''The Guardian'' supplement "G2" on Fridays called "Supposing", in which he free-associated on a set of vague what-if themes. From October 2006 this column was expanded into a full-page section on Mondays, including samples from TVGoHome and Ignopedia, an occasional series of pseudo-articles on topics mostly suggested by readers. The key theme behind Ignopedia was that, while Wikipedia is written and edited by thousands of users, Ignopedia would be written by a single sub-par person with little or no awareness of the facts.

On 24 October 2004, he wrote a column on George W. Bush and the forthcoming 2004 US presidential election which concluded, "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley, Jr. – where are you now that we need you?" that was criticised for Brooker's apparent encouragement of the assassination of the American president. ''The Guardian'' withdrew the article from its website and published and endorsed an apology by Brooker. He has since commented about the remark in the column stating:

Brooker left the "Screen Burn" column in 2010. In the final column, he noted how increasingly difficult he found it to reconcile his role in mainstream media and TV production with his writing as a scabrous critic or to objectively criticise those he increasingly worked and socialised with. Longtime covering contributor Grace Dent took over the column. He continued to contribute other articles to ''The Guardian'' on a regular basis, his most recent comment column appearing in May 2015.

In 2012 he contributed to the book ''Behind the Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who''.

In 2014, an article he wrote for ''The Guardian''—"Too much talk for one planet: why I'm reducing my word emissions"—was published in the A-Level anthology ''Voices in Speech and Writing: An Anthology''.

Online

From 1999 to 2003 he wrote the satirical '' TVGoHome'' website, a regular series of mock TV schedules published in a format similar to that of the '' Radio Times'', consisting of a combination of savage satire and surreal humour and featured in technology newsletter Need To Know. A print adaptation of the site was published by Fourth Estate in 2001. A TV sketch show based on the site was broadcast on UK digital station E4 the same year.

In May 2012, Brooker was interviewed for Richard Herring's '' Leicester Square Theatre Podcast'' series. In 2019, he made a second appearance on the podcast, which was released during March 2020.

Television

From 1999 to 2000, Brooker played hooded expert 'the Pundit' in the short-lived show '' Games Republic'', hosted by Trevor and Simon on BSkyB.

In 2000, Brooker was one of the writers of the Channel 4 show ''The 11 O'Clock Show'' and a co-host (with Gia Milinovich) on BBC Knowledge's ''The Kit'', a low-budget programme dedicated to gadgets and technology (1999–2000). In 2001, he was one of several writers on Channel 4's ''Brass Eye'' special on the subject of paedophilia.

In 2003, Brooker wrote an episode entitled "How to Watch Television" for Channel 4's ''The Art Show''. The episode was presented in the style of a public information film and was partly animated.

Together with ''Brass Eyes Chris Morris, Brooker co-wrote the sitcom '' Nathan Barley'', based on a character from one of TVGoHome's fictional programmes. The show was broadcast in 2005 and focused on the lives of a group of London media 'trendies'. The same year, he was also on the writing team of the Channel 4 sketch show '' Spoons'', produced by Zeppotron.

''Wipe'' series

In 2006, Brooker began writing and presenting the television series '' Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe'' on BBC Four, a TV review programme in a similar style to his ''Screen Burn'' columns in ''The Guardian''. After an initial pilot series of three editions in April, the programme returned later in the year for a second run of four episodes plus Christmas and Review of the Year specials in December 2006. A third series followed in February 2007 with a fourth broadcast in September 2007, followed by a Review of the Year in December 2007. The fifth series started in November 2008 and was followed by another Review of the Year special. This series was also the first to be given a primetime repeat on terrestrial television ( BBC Two), in January 2009.

''Screenwipe'' editions have focused on a themes including American television, TV news, advertising and children's programmes. The last of these involved a segment where Brooker joined the cast of '' Toonattik'' for one week, playing the character of "Angry News Guy". An episode focused on scriptwriting, which saw several of British television's most prominent writers interviewed by Brooker.

''Newswipe with Charlie Brooker'', a similar show focusing on current affairs reporting by the international news media, began on BBC Four on 25 March 2009. A second series began on 19 January 2010. He has also written and presented the one-off special '' Gameswipe'' which focused on video games and aired on BBC Four on 29 September 2009.

Brooker's ''2010 Wipe'', a review of 2010, was broadcast in December 2010. The end-of-year ''Wipe'' specials continued annually, the last one to date broadcast on 29 December 2016. Due to Brooker's commitments to ''Black Mirror'' and other projects, the annual Wipe went on hiatus from 2017
onwards.

'' Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe'' was first broadcast on BBC Two on 31 January 2013. It is an amalgam of ''Screenwipe'' and ''Newswipe'', with sections focusing on recent news, television shows and films. Along with the regular cast, it also features guests who discuss recent events. Two more series followed in 2014 and 2015. A 60-minute special, ''Election Wipe'', aired on 6 May 2015, focused on the events running up to the 2015 general election.

A 45-minute BBC Two special, ''Charlie Brooker's Antiviral Wipe'', aired on 14 May 2020. It focused on life during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. It was produced during the UK lockdown, which had caused a series starring ''Wipe'' character Philomena Cunk to be postponed. Most of the crew from the series transferred to work on ''Antiviral Wipe''. Brooker initially turned down the offer to make the special but accepted when it was clear that production would be largely unchanged, the format of the series—with few characters appearing on the same screen together and extensive use of archive footage—well-suited to the lockdown rules. The editing process was the most affected.

He often signs off his programmes by saying "Thank you for watching. Now go away."

''Dead Set''

Brooker wrote ''Dead Set'', a five-part zombie horror thriller for E4 set in the '' Big Brother'' house. The show was broadcast in October 2008 to coincide with Halloween and was repeated on Channel 4 in January 2009 to coincide with ''Celebrity Big Brother'', and again for Halloween later that year. It was produced by Zeppotron, which also produced ''Screenwipe''.

Brooker told MediaGuardian.co.uk it comprised a "mixture of known and less well known faces" and "Dead Set is very different to anything I've done before, and I hope the end result will surprise, entertain and appall people in equal measure." He added that he has long been a fan of horror films and that his new series "could not be described as a comedy". "I couldn't really describe what it is but it will probably surprise people," Brooker said, adding that he plans to "continue as normal" with his print journalism.

Jaime Winstone starred as a runner on the TV programme, and ''Big Brother'' presenter Davina McCall guest starred as herself.TV review: Dead Set
, Leicester Mercury, 28 October 2008 Dead Set received a BAFTA nomination for ''Best Drama Serial''.Bafta TV Awards 2009: The winners
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