How The Revolution Will Be Televised comics got close to Cameron

A comedian from BBC Three's hidden-camera show The Revolution Will Be Televised managed to bypass David Cameron's security for a stunt in their new series.

Jolyon Rubinstein harassed the Prime Minister in character as posh Tory MP James Twattington-Berbidge and offered him a mocked-up yearbook from his privileged Oxford drinking society The Bullingdon Club.

Cameron refused to take the gift as he walked through a hotel on route to a fundraising event, pushing it away when he realised what it was. Rubinstein continued to bug the PM, saying: 'Come on Dave, George and Boris signed it.'

When asked how they got so close to Cameron, Rubinstein said: 'It's because we're total ninjas.'

Heydon Prowse, his co-star on the Bafta-winning BBC Three series added: 'We had to plan in intricate detail. We had to know every exit and consider every eventuality. We would make great terrorists..'

'Or bank robbers,' Rubinstein added, stepping back a little from the T-word. After all, an online video promoting the new series shows the pair driving up to the gates of Parliament with a truck full of actual bullshit – otherwise known as fertiliser.

Yet the pair have avoided getting into serious trouble, despite some high-profile stunts. The new series involves footage shot outside the highly-fortified Israeli Embassy in London, while they also blagged their way in to the supposedly high-security confines of the Saudi embassy to install a literal glass ceiling to 'protect women from their aspirations'.

Nonetheless, the pair are known to authorities. Rubinstein said he knew that their names had been circulated around naval intelligence, while their pictures apparently hang in the guardhouse at the Sandhurst military academy. But they say the key to getting past entry gates is to act with confidence, while maintaining they are acting on the authority of an unseen power.

But apparently it is Nick Clegg's security detail who dislikes them the most. Rubinstein said: 'We were told, "the Deputy Prime Minister doesn't want to be in your programme.". We said, "It doesn't quite work like that." No one wants to be on our show except us.'

Other stunts in the series, which starts on Sunday night, include trying to gatecrash a party thrown by lobbyists Bell Pottinger dressed as Hitler, trying to get €10 from Nigel Farage, and infiltrating Google's London HQ and telling staff they must answer the phone, 'Hello, O'Google' to highlight the internet giant's Irish-based tax-saving arrangements.

Preview

'Our world is full of hypocrisy, corruption and greed,' reads the tongue-in cheek title credits. 'Somebody needs to fight back. Shame it had to be these two.'

It's quite a push to suggest their silly stunts, inconveniencing reception and security staff more that the real decision makers, are directly confronting any corporate or political immorality. Though they would argue, not without merit, that the mere act of highlighting such behaviour on national TV is achievement enough.

Jolyon Rubinstein and Haydon Prowse are not short of audacity or bravery to pull off the sort of capers they do; though it's hard to completely buy this cheeky show's billing as 'satire'.

They owe a lot to Mark Thomas, but don't have his depth of political research. As a consequence the pranks are just that, pranks. They remind people of outrages they already felt, rather exposing new ones. And it's hard to envisage this duo provoking any real change in the law, as Thomas has done.

Yet they could be the light entertainment wing of UK Uncut, using witty direct action to make their point, even if the Establishment views them as feckless rabble-rousers.

Packed with fast-moving stunts, The Revolution Will Be Televised t generates fewer laughs than it does talking-point clips, which may the point. It reflects the way many people – especially the younger BBC Three audience raised on the internet – express their disillusionment with the system: not so much by active revolution, whatever Russell Brand would wish, but by vocalising their 'Down with this sort of thing!' affront among like-minded souls.

• Here is the David Cameron footage. The new series starts at 10.25pm on Sunday:

Published: 5 Nov 2013