Proof that comedian David Mitchell is the most uxorious of men. In May, historian David Starkey attacked Mitchell’s wife, writer Victoria Coren, on air during Question Time, insisting she was part of a “cosy club” of the political elite. He said that the success of rich and well-connected people like her - her father was the Times journalist Alan Coren, her brother is food writer and broadcaster Giles - was a major reason people were becoming disillusioned with politics and turning to parties like UKIP.
Six months on Mitchell has exacted sweet marital revenge. In a forthcoming edition of the Radio 4 comedy That Mitchell and Webb Sound, he pokes fun at the historian in two sketches.
In one, set in a Channel 4 commissioning meeting, executives wonder if Starkey appeals to viewers because he is so “uncomfortable to watch”. In the second, the same executives say they block Starkey’s emails but that he has changed his name to get a programme pitch through called “A History of the Blacks”.
The fictional executives then discuss Starkey’s fitness for the role, given his “unhelpful generalisations” during the 2011 London riots. This is a reference to the time Starkey told Newsnight that “the whites have become black” in a discussion on the riots. But does not Mitchell’s use of Radio 4 to defend his wife’s amour propre run the risk of confirming suspicions of a cosy club?
