Jonathan Pie

If the state of British politics sometimes feels like an elaborate joke that has been allowed to run for far too long, Jonathan Pie is coming to Brighton to make sense of it — or, more accurately, to shout about it. The fictional news reporter created by comedian Tom Walker brings his new live show, The End of the World According to Jonathan Pie, to Brighton Dome on 23 and 24 September.

Pie first became an internet phenomenon through a series of apparently spontaneous, increasingly furious rants delivered by a fictional television reporter. The conceit was simple but brilliantly effective: Pie would finish a perfectly respectable news report before turning towards the camera and unleashing everything he really thought about the politicians, journalists and institutions involved. The videos were convincing enough that, in the early days, some viewers genuinely mistook him for a real news correspondent.

That mixture of political…