Clarissa Tan

Mimics, pagans and pilgrims on TV

issue 16 March 2013

What would you do if you had a quite extraordinary talent in impersonating everyone, from Al Pacino to Barack Obama to just any random Irish bloke? In TV land, you are probably rather baffled by it all, and unsure what to do about it as you languish in an unfulfilling half-life, until a Series of Events comes along to show you what a gift you have.

This is what happens to The Mimic’s Martin Hurdle, whom we first encounter in his car stuck in traffic, entertaining himself by putting on the voice of Terry Wogan, true to it in texture and timbre, if not in spirit (‘It’s mornings like this, that I wish I was back in Phuket, bouncing a ladyboy on each knee!’).

Martin, played in Channel 4’s new series (Wednesday) by impersonator Terry Mynott, works as a maintenance man in a dead-end job, and has been doing so for seven years.

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