British satire is terrible and it's not my fault
You can't speak truth to power and expect to earn a living
In the opening scene of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev (1966), a skomorokh or mediaeval Slavic harlequin, entertains a crowd of villagers sheltering from a rainstorm. He mocks everyone – the Church, the local barons, the three monks who enter to shelter too. After his act is done, he’s arrested, knocked unconscious and has his ins…