Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker Returns to the BBC With Anti-Viral Wipe

Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker used to write and present a BBC show called ScreenWipe, a TV adaptation of his Guardian newspaper column Screenburn. It transformer into GamesWipe, then NewsWipe or simply Charlie Brooker's Wipe, eventually coalescing into an annual Wipe that we didn't get for the past few years. It was generally look back at the week, or the year, picking up topics of interest, adding poetry, music and references to pop culture whizzing past at the speed of light. It spawned fictitious cultural commentators like Barry Shitpeas and Philomena Cunk, who got her own spinoff shows of inspired inanity. But Charlie Brooker has just been too busy with Black Mirror to do a Wipe show for the last four years. Well, he's not too busy now.

As a result we will be getting a special lockdown edition of the show for the BBC, dubbed Anti-Viral Wipe. It will include Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) and Barry Shitpeas (Al Campbell), offering their "own very special brand of in-depth reporting" and others who "haven't been told they're doing it yet, but have no good excuse not to".

The BBC's press release says: "Charlie Brooker has been lured out of isolation, to go into isolation for the one-off. Charlie will be taking a typically sharp look at life in lockdown, in a show made during lockdown. As well as coverage of the crisis itself, he'll also be looking at the things people are watching and doing to keep themselves occupied."

Anti-Viral Wipe is a Broke & Bones and Endemol Shine UK co-production for BBC Two. The executive producer is Annabel Jones, and series producer is Alison Marlow. The commissioning editor for the BBC is Ben Caudell. Broadcast date is not yet set. Here's a look back at some previous Wipes for context. I do hope they keep the TV theme tune that reflected British computer TV shows f the late seventies and early eighties, until they fall apart.