The BBC has an aura of entitlement

00:00 05:09

Richard Madeley has narrated this article for you to listen to.

To W12 to be in W1A. The spoof TV series on internal BBC politics (one of that vanishingly rare UK television species – a comedy that’s actually funny) filmed a special episode for Red Nose Day. It poked fun at Lenny Henry’s final appearance as Comic Relief host after nearly 40 years at the helm. I featured as myself, cockily pitching for his job in front of an increasingly outraged Lenny. Richard Curtis’s script was hilarious, but filming was a surreal experience. Not because I was in the same room as the W1A cast, all in character as appalling BBC apparatchiks, but because we really were in the equivalent of W1A: the BBC’s offices in Wood Lane, Shepherd’s Bush. Art imitating life imitating art.

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I guess it felt weird because as anyone who’s been there will tell you, there really is a ‘BBC’ atmosphere about the place.