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Matt Hancock – the Freak Show

by Toby Young
12 June 2023 1:00 PM

The Standard sent a reporter along to write about the first performance of the Lockdown Files Live on Saturday, in which I interviewed Isabel Oakeshott on stage about working with Matt Hancock on the Pandemic Diaries, why he shared over 100,000 WhatsApp messages with her, and why she then decided to turn them over to the Telegraph. To break up the interview, two gifted actors read out some of the more embarrassing exchanges, with Adam Drew playing Hancock and Adrian McGlynn playing Boris, which the audience found very entertaining. We’re doing it again on Tuesday night at the Hippodrome in Leicester Square, for which a handful of tickets are still available. Only £25 for two hours of rock solid entertainment in the West End, which must be the bargain of the century! There’s also a very nice bar. Click here if you’d like to buy a ticket.

Here’s how the Standard piece begins:

It’s past 9pm on Saturday night in Westminster, and Matt Hancock is shouting “we didn’t break the f**king law, OK!” Well, an actor playing Hancock is shouting, as he reads out real messages from the former health secretary when his Covid guidelines-breaking affair with aide Gina Coladangelo was discovered in 2021.

It’s part of a new live show put on by Isabel Oakeshott, the journalist Hancock fell out with when she leaked his pandemic WhatsApps to a newspaper earlier this year.

For most of the show, Oakeshott is interviewed on stage by fellow lockdown sceptic Toby Young at the UnHerd Club near Parliament, in front of around 100 people. She and Young decided to do a live event after he was one of the few people in the media to defend her decision to reveal the messages. Young then suggested getting actors to read out Hancock’s WhatsApps, to add some fun to proceedings. Hancock himself hasn’t been that keen on the idea.

Oakeshott tells Young how she came to write a pandemic book with Hancock, and stands by her actions, saying they were in the public interest. She says she wouldn’t be able to do that now, as most MPs have switched on auto-delete on their WhatsApp conversations. “Maybe that’s just for me”, she jokes.

In between the chat, the actors do their thing, dressed in ill-fitting suits. Highlights include chats with then PM Boris Johnson about exceptions for grouse shooting, and a cringe-inducing monologue where Hancock justifies wearing a wetsuit for a photoshoot in Cornwall. The group will perform again tomorrow, at the Leicester Square Hippodrome, usually the home of strip show Magic Mike. Hopefully, no one books their hen do on the wrong night. If they get the backing, they’d like to do a verbatim play.

Adrian McGlynn, who plays Hancock, is an amateur actor and retired director of a horse-racing company. He was in the same year at Eton with David Cameron, while his partner is former BBC radio star Sarah Kennedy. McGlynn is an anti-lockdown advocate, and says he isn’t doing an impression of Hancock. “I don’t look anything like him,” he says, but does try a few verbal tics (“Lots of ‘ers’ and ‘umms”), and some mannerisms. “He looks around a lot, as if he’s looking for praise or applause… nose up in the air a little bit,” McGlynn says.

“I have nothing but contempt for our former health secretary, so I do it with much glee and no fear,” he says with relish. “I’ve been shaking my head in disbelief at his arrogance and total immunity from self-awareness”. Meanwhile, actor Adam Drew gives an on-the-money impression of Johnson.

Worth reading in full.

If you’d like to buy a ticket for Tuesday night’s second and final performance at the Hippodrome, click here.

Stop Press: The Telegraph has just released a video about the Lockdown Files. You can watch it here.

Tags: Adam DrewAdrian McGlynnIsabel OakeshottLockdown Files LiveMatt Hancock

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18 Comments
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago

“Techno-con”. Neat phrase. I’m going to use that. It will take off.

117
-1
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago

Because Clown World logic dictates that the likes of a total non-expert ( and extremely bloody irritating, while I’m at it ) called Greta gets to have all the limelight and spout all the blatant lies but on her elitist platform she will remain, because she’s talking complete garbage but is pro-narrative.

And speaking of the Peta Pan of the Garbage Pail Kid world and bloody annoying people, does anybody have photo evidence of her or her eco nutter acolytes ever getting their hands dirty? Because if any of them ever did anything useful to help the environment, as opposed to gluing themselves to things, walking like zombies in the road or chucking orange stuff everywhere, I might be a tad less scathing. People should be judged by their actions, after all;

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1685046948833673216

89
0
Monro
Monro
1 year ago

Hello, Westminster….Mr Sunak…..Parliament…….Uncle Tom Cobley……

‘I can confidently say there is no real climate crisis and that climate change does not cause extreme weather events.’

Dr J. F. Clauser

‘Dr. John F. Clauser, born 1942, is an American theoretical and experimental physicist known for contributions to the foundations of quantum mechanics. Clauser was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger, “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”.

75
0
Monro
Monro
1 year ago
Reply to  Monro

Oh!

‘In conclusion on the basis of observational data, the climate crisis that, according to many sources, we are experiencing today, is not evident yet.’

‘A critical assessment of extreme events trends in times of global warming’ The European Physical Journal +, Jan 2022

27
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago

Off-topic due to there being no articles about jabs today:
This new peer-reviewed study is significant because it demonstrates increased mortality in children <5yrs the more vaccinations they have. Conclusion;

”There are statistically significant positive correlations between neonatal, infant, and under age five mortality rates of developed nations and the number of early childhood vaccine doses that are routinely given. When developed nations require two versus zero neonatal vaccine doses, or many versus fewer infant vaccine doses, our study suggests there may be unintended consequences that increase all-cause mortality. Further investigations of the hypotheses generated by this study are recommended to confirm that current vaccination schedules are achieving their intended objectives.”

https://www.cureus.com/articles/164423-neonatal-infant-and-under-age-five-vaccine-doses-routinely-given-in-developed-nations-and-their-association-with-mortality-rates#!/

33
-2
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Jikky has a good thread about it here with some additional information;

https://twitter.com/Jikkyleaks/status/1685468279077244930

15
0
Sforzesca
Sforzesca
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Thanks for the information.
Neil Z. Miller, referred to in the links also has a very interesting book – “Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies”.
Well worth a read.

5
0
Lockdown Sceptic
Lockdown Sceptic
1 year ago

Of course Obama live by the ocean, (or should that be oceans?) despite his warnings of the sea rising

09a Climate emergency corrupt science Nobel laureate copy.jpg
24
0
George L
George L
1 year ago

Cancelled by the IMF.. now there’s a surprise.. another nasty little cabal of bankers who are responsible for sucking the life blood out of so many third world countries with their unpayable debt, and plunging them into despicable levels of poverty..

Anybody who believes the IMF are the slightest bit interested in ‘saving’ the planet needs a size 10 boot five lace-holes up their jacksy..

62
0
ebygum
ebygum
1 year ago

LOL! What the hell does he know? Is he famous? Is he on the telly?

Well then…proof positive, the ‘science is settled’ according to the omniscient BBC…
we have our true, bona fide Commander in Chief Greta, who absolutely knows better and we need to be listening to her!

17
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago

If Clauser is cancelled then all of science needs cancelling as well because a “climate crisis” is NOT supported by any science.—— In matters of science you question EVERYTHING. But the thing that is different about climate science is that there is no way to conduct experiments. There maybe agreement about some basic facts, such as the earth has warmed in the last 150 years, and that CO2 has contributed in some way to that. But there are also serious doubts and uncertainties. (1) How much can the climate expect to change as a result of us adding CO2 to the atmosphere and (2) Is this dangerous? There is also the question over the role of natural variability of the climate compared to assumed changes caused by CO2. But assumptions are NOT science. Speculations about the effect CO2 will have on temperature and climate should be discussed and debated, and when there is this determination to halt any discussion and silence those asking pertinent questions then we are no longer dealing with science. But many on this website will know that already. Science is all the time sold to the public on this issue as FACT. No it isn’t. It is a PROCESS. ———- Yesterday on GB News we had the usual little debate with invited guests. One of those guests in a discussion about ULEZ was the Meteorologist Jim Dale. I found it astonishing that he could still be harping on about the manufactured consensus, the so called 97% of scientists all apparently agree on something. But in this so called consensus, what were the scientists asked, and what were there replies? 97% consensus of scientists is ABSURD. As Judith Curry has pointed out Consensus is NOT a proxy for truth. Consensus stops questions from being asked and investigations taking place. Consensus is also just an appeal to authority, but science is not a dictatorship where people with views not consistent with the political consensus masquerading as scientific truth are outlawed, ostracised and silenced, and those who question dogma are delegitimised. Is this what science has become? Clauser is certainly finding that out, and so are everyone else who challenges climate tyranny.

22
0
GMO
GMO
1 year ago

If they cancel an opposing or different point-of-view it means they don’t have the data to defend their own viewpoint.

They know their opinion will not stand up to scrutiny.

18
0

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