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Spitting Image: Dominic Cummings and Prince Andrew reimagined as puppets ahead of series revival

Satirical current affairs programme is being revived for BritBox

Isobel Lewis
Wednesday 05 August 2020 10:20 BST
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Spitting Image co-creator, Roger Law, talks about Donald Trump's new puppet

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Prince Andrew, Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson have all been turned into puppets for the new series of Spitting Image.

The hit satirical series is being revived for streaming service BritBox, with new episodes dropping this year that will cover the coronavirus crisis and a number of political scandals.

Among those to be parodied is Prince Andrew, following his Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis addressing his alleged involvement with Jeffrey Epstein.

Also set to feature on the show are Boris Johnson, whose puppet features a lopsided tie and unkempt mop of hair, as well as a vampire-like Dominic Cummings puppet in the wake of the political advisor’s Barnard Castle lockdown trip.

It has previously been announced that Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Bernie Sanders will be parodied on the show, while Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, RuPaul, Adele, Elon Musk, Beyonce, and James Corden will also be given a Spitting Image makeover.

Spitting Image originally ran from 1984 to 1996 on ITV, and used caricatured puppets to parody well-known contemporary celebrities. Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and the Queen Mother were some of the original show’s most popular victims.

Co-creator Roger Law, who worked on the original series as well as the remake, last year said that the current political climate meant there had never been a better time for the show to come back as he referred to Spitting Image as “public service satire”.

“It’s pretty chaotic out there,” Law said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s better than shouting at the television set, isn’t it? So I thought, let’s give it a go.”

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