Steve Coogan On Using Comedy To Tackle #MeToo In Channel 4 Show ‘Chivalry’ And Playing Jimmy Savile: “Things Are Better Talked About Than Not Talked About”

deadline.com:

Steve Coogan has spotlighted his and Sarah Solemani’s use of comedy to tackle the #MeToo debate in upcoming Channel 4 show Chivalry and talked openly about playing Jimmy Savile, stating: “Things are better talked about than not talked about.”The Philomena and Lost King star told Deadline the aim with Chivalry, which comes from his BBC Studios-backed indie Baby Cow, was to make a show about “love and respect” that could make people laugh, while using humor to open up a wider debate.Coogan and Solemani play the lead roles in Chivalry, having come up with the concept during the filming of Michael Winterbottom’s Greed when they found themselves debating the issues regularly and at length.Also starring Sienna Miller, Wanda Sykes and Aisling Bea, the show features Coogan as Cameron, a successful film producer and “ladies man,” and Ridley Road creator Solemani as Bobby, a passionate indie-darling filmmaker.

It creates a fresh look on gender politics and asks questions around building a career in Hollywood, authenticity and gender politics.“#MeToo took place five years ago and now we are asking what happens next,” Coogan explained.“Having an intellectual discourse about this is fraught with difficulty and it’s hard to engage the audience but if you are skilful and nuanced they can be engaged.

You then use comedy to make them laugh and they relax a little, their tribalism abates.”Comedy will be used as a “way in” for the show before it “has the guts to be sincere and not put things in inverted commas,” added Coogan, who said “sometimes you just want people to say what they fucking mean.”He gave a window into his and Solemani’s writing process, explaining: “We’d be having a heated argument about something we felt was