Stalin crazy

HAVING already ridiculed British politicians and their functionaries in TV comedy The Thick Of It, and lampooned their unctuous and bumptious American counterparts in Veep and the Oscar-nominated In The Loop, where on earth will Armando Iannucci turn his crosshairs next for fun? East, of course. To Russia.

New film The Death Of Stalin looks at the power struggle which broke out after the murdering dictator's demise in 1953 and, based on the trailer, looks set to be just as laugh-out-loud funny as everything else the Glasgow-born satirist has done. Steve Buscemi as Nikita Khrushchev? Simon Russell Beale as feared secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria? Michael Palin as Vyacheslav Molotov, of petrol libation fame? What's not to like?

A great deal, if you're the Russian Communist Party. Currently the second largest party in the Russian parliament, it has called for Iannucci's film to be banned, with spokesman Alexander Yushchenko describing it as “disgusting”. Also sticking his oar in is one Pavel Pozhigailo, deputy head of a panel of experts advising the culture ministry. It's the government department with responsibility for either handing The Death Of Stalin a free pardon or (more likely, given the subject matter) bundling it into a car in the middle of the night with a bag over its head, never to be seen or heard of again. The film shouldn't be released, said Pozhigailo, if it proves to be “as provocative as Matilda”.

Blimey, what did Roald Dahl ever do to Russia? Is there some coded anti-Russian message in the bit where Matilda glues her dad's hat to his head? Or did they just really hate Danny Devito's film adaptation? Turns out it's a different film called Matilda, one about an affair between Tsar Nicholas II and some ballerina who later married his cousin. But even that apparently uncontentious subject matter saw cars set alight in protest.

Finally Sergei Obukhov, the secretary of the central committee of the Russian Communist Party, has gone so far as to call The Death Of Stalin “another form of psychological warfare”. I suppose that's one way of describing satire. Still, something tells me Armando Iannucci won't be looking to Moscow to host the European premiere when the film opens next month.

Vandal scandal

IF you're fed up with podcast snobs and TV hipsters banging on about Serial, S-Town, Making Of A Murderer and all those other worthy investigative documentaries, then Hallelujah!, a perfect two-fingered rejoinder is at hand. Or, more precisely, at groin level.

Let me explain. American Vandal, which airs on Netflix, takes the same forensic approach to a crime as the programmes mentioned above, but satirises the form mercilessly by making that crime a ridiculous one – the spray-painting of 27 crude representations of the erect male genitalia onto 27 cars, each one belonging to a teacher at a California high school. It is, essentially, an eight-episode crude joke.

That said, on the Iannucci scale of hilarious, mocking satire it scores a healthy nine-and-a-half as two students pick apart the case against the apparent perpetrator – numbskull and all-round ****hole Dylan Maxwell, who draws similar crude designs on the class whiteboard at least four times a week. They think he's as innocent as he says he is, and they set out to prove it. The first real breakthrough? Dylan's tried-and-tested design always features a certain, er, adornment. It's kind of his trademark flourish. The ones on the cars, however, have no such "extras". So the question remains: who did the dirty deed?

Sheep tricks

MARY Berry nimbly shepherded Paul Hollywood through eight seasons of The Great British Bake Off without having to set the dogs on him, so turning Little Bo Peep to herd some sheep over London bridge today should be as easy as Croquembouche, Baked Alaska or Swedish Princess Cake. Or saying “no thanks” to the man from Channel 4 who turned up carrying an attaché case stuffed with £50 notes in a bid to lure her away from the Beeb.

The veteran cookery writer and bona fide National Treasure is already a Freeman of the City of London, which honorific means she gets to take part in the traditional sheep drive that opens the 2017 Wool Fair and which is organised by the 800-year-old Worshipful Company of Woolmen.

Given all that rich heritage, tourists and sightseers are expected to flock (sorry) to the event. However they may not all be there just to see Berry. Hard as it may be to believe, sheep seem to be quite a tourist draw these days in their own right. In Iceland, for instance, tourists are now saddling up to take part in the annual “réttir”, a tradition as old as the Worshipful Company of Freemen that involves 800,000 sheep being driven out of their summer pasture and corralled for the winter. Personally I'd rather go to Tuscany for my holidays and stay corralled in a luxury villa, but each to their own.

Wait, there's even more ovine entertainment in store. On Wednesday, the Prince Charles cinema in London's West End hosts the red carpet world premiere of Baa Baa Land, an eight hour, slow motion film featuring – you guessed it – sheep. There's no dialogue, no narrative and no Mary Berry, yet it has already been called “a masterpiece of slow cinema” and “a contemplative epic”.

By some, anyway. Others, such Peter Freedman and Michael Acton Smith – respectively the film's producer and co-executive producer, whatever that means – have been less kind. “We don’t expect a big audience,” says Freedman. “In fact, we’ll be surprised if many turn up at all – and amazed if folks stay until the end”. Acton Smith, meanwhile, thinks the only Oscar Baa Baa Land is likely to win is one for dullest movie. “Nothing happens … for eight hours,” he says. “Glorious!”

Private jokes

WHENEVER I hear a private school headmaster trying to argue that the independent sector does not inculcate its pupils with a them-and-us attitude, or sharpen and enhance the already vivid inequalities in our educational system, or turn out young people with no working knowledge of how most Britons live – pauses for breath and a caviare blini – I want to point him (and it is usually a him) in the direction of the Instagram page, Overheard At Private School.

I don't know what they do teach at private schools these days, but one glance at this and it's pretty clear what they don't. Humility, for a start. “Shower curtains are a sign of poverty” is just one of the zingers you'll find. There are plenty of others, such as “Daddy only gave me a £200 budget on stationary. Does he think my rainbow Sharpie packs are going to buy themselves?” Or “I wasn't allowed to stay in her house alone with her in South Ken so I stayed in her spare house next door”. Or “Does playing the local state school count as charity work?”.

Don't laugh. It's not funny. They can't all be given parts in Made In Chelsea so some of these people are going to be running the BBC in a few years time. One of them may even be Prime Minister. Of course there's no way of ensuring the veracity of the contributions so, even if they don't ring true, we'll have to take them at face value. Won't we?