This is the third year in a row that Donald Trump (aka Ronald Rump) has appeared in my Crazy Christmas Show in Tivoli.
Joker in the pack
The first time I wrote him into my show was before his election in 2016, at which point I never expected him to become president.
The jokes I wrote then were based entirely on the absurd statements he made during his campaign, from building ‘The Wall’ to his sexist comments about grabbing a woman’s you-know-what.
It was all so outrageous that it almost negated the need to make it funnier than it was in reality.
Ronald Rump aced it
The second time (2017) I entitled the show ‘Planet Rump – the Farce Awakens’.
One year of Trump’s presidency had yielded a rich supply of targets for satire and every comedian was dipping into it. It is hard to compete with TV comedians like Trevor Noah, Stephen Colbert or Alec Baldwin’s parody, but in that regard I think that David Bateson in my show has created an even better impersonation of the orange-faced president.
The lines I wrote satirised Trump as a mad narcissistic billionaire in the galaxy governing ‘The Orange Planet’, and on stage David portrayed him hilariously as a sulky child.
King of dilemmas
This year, with the mid-term elections looming, I was confronted with an even greater challenge: the satirical writer’s dilemma. What could I write in August about Trump that would still be relevant at Christmas?
The 45th president changes his government, his policies and his mind faster than wildfire or climate change (which he of course doesn’t believe exists).
American comedians complain that they have to be careful about mocking Trump. They can face angry heckles or even death threats in that gun-toting society. In Europe, fortunately, we are free to joke about his excesses.
Even so, this year I have not made him ‘the bad guy’ for our audiences to boo at. This year that role is allotted to Putin (aka Boot-in), while Ronald Rump is portrayed as an ignorant coward in thrall to his Russian friend.
Enclave of knavery
The bottom line is that Trump has changed forever the image of a US president. When American parents tell their children that “anyone can be president”, they’re not lying. Anyone being any idiot. And not just a benign idiot, but a war-mongering one.
Trump loves wars. Trade wars. Twitter wars. You name a person, place or thing and he has attacked it via a tweet. Wars against journalists (fake news) and wars against comedians.
He is so thin-skinned that he cannot ignore jokes. But this last war is one that Trump will lose badly – or bigly. And, as opposed to the other wars, this one will be great fun to watch.
So the question is: what about next year’s Crazy Christmas Show? Should I write Ronald Rump into the show one more time? Answers please to londontoast.dk.