History repeats itself, first as tragedy, secondly as farce. Tragedy because the first time round it shouldn’t have happened. Farce because we didn’t learn from our mistakes and so let it happen all over again. But what about when it happens a third time? Or a fourth? Or fifth? Or unendingly in some deja vu-esque nightmare? What comes after farce? In the case of this government’s mishandling of the Covid crisis, with every decision turn missed, with every predictable problem unseen, with no Plan B for eminently foreseeable scenarios where even a child would think “perhaps a Plan B might be needed here…just in case”, we end up living in a Morecambe and Wise world of Grieg’s piano concerto being performed by buffoons who want it to look like they are taking it seriously.
In the most famous TV sketch that Eric and Ernie appeared in with the world class conductor Andre Previn (“Mr. Preview”), Eric (think Boris) misses his cue several times. Taking too long to walk to the piano due to his showboating (think Boris), he is at least a yard too far from the piano when the time comes for him to play. In a real classical concert, this would be a tragedy. We now enter Eric’s surreal world and the serious minded Previn is dragged into an Alice in Wonderland world of nightmarish proportions (think us – seriously trying to get a sensible solution – in Boris’s egotistical universe of Walter Mittyish promises and exaggerated claims). Eric suggests that maybe Previn could make the musical introduction “about a yard shorter” to give him time to get to the piano in time to hit his cue. In his twisted imagination, this is how music works and this is how you deal with the problem (think Boris’s boosterish behaviour shaking hands with anyone and everyone in some sort of parallel universe attempt to show the disease who was boss). Eric then decides to sit at the piano rather than make an entrance (think Boris getting the disease and rethinking his original flamboyant approach) then misses his cue again because he is seated and cannot see the conductor cue him in over the piano lid (think Boris failing to spot a glaringly obvious problem with his “plan”).
The sketch goes on and Previn attempts to get the concerto underway. Eventually, the introductory bars build back to the dramatic moment when the piano solo starts. Eric gets his cue but starts playing, very badly and out of tune (think Boris striking precisely the wrong tone with his own discordant plonking notes when what is called for is gravitas and realism). Previn stops the orchestra. Dumbstruck with horror, he stalks over to the piano and says to Eric: “You’re playing all the wrong notes!”. To which Eric replies with Boris-like bravado: “I’m playing all the right notes…just not necessarily in the right order”.
That’s Boris. Playing all the wrong notes. Out of time. And not necessarily in the right order. And, instead of laughing, we are crying. Crying with frustration at the hopeless ineptitude of the whole show. It has ceased to be funny. History may well be tragic at the start, progress to farce and then to pure comedy, but eventually, when repeated over and over with no apparent lessons being drawn, it turns full circle to tragedy again. It shouldn’t happen, but it does – over and over again.
Eventually, Previn takes to the keyboard himself and shows how it should be done. Shown up for the hopeless imposter he is, Eric covers his embarrassment by trying to dismiss the virtuoso performance as “rubbish”. Boris is trying to pull off the same trick. When it comes time again to pass verdict on his Covid “show”, the people of Britain will not be laughing. And Boris will be starring in his very own, self-imposed, self-regarding ‘tragedy’. But the real tragedy is the unnecessary suffering his incompetence has imposed on everyone else. It is beyond farcical.