Russian comedians of the week – and that’s always a crowded field – are a couple of guys called Vova and Lexus, who pretended to be Vladimir Putin and his translator and got Elton John to take their call. Elton has been angling for an audience with Putin to advocate for LGBT rights in Russia, and duly fell for the hoax, which the pair regard as a huge coup. They aired the clip of the call on their show on Wednesday night.
Having listened to it, Lost in Showbiz has to ask: how is it possible for two comedians to have had Elton John on the line and not tried to engage him in a bit of bantz about the hilarious set of holiday photos Putin recently released, showing the Russian president pumping iron and clinking fine china with his pocket prime minister Dmitry Medvedev? How could they not get “Putin” to claim they were just as glam as the ones of Elton and David in St Tropez? How could they miss the chance to have a vulnerable-sounding Putin ask past-master Elton how to improve his tracksuit game, or have him labour under the impression that Nikita was actually written about an earlier Elton bilateral with Khrushchev?
I am told that the answer to all of these questions is “because Vova and Lexus’s show runs on the largest state TV channel in Russia”. In which case, we can only say: stay edgy, guys! We have an almost limitless supply of foreign popstars for those times when you have photos of your homophobic president and PM barbecuing like it’s the beach volleyball scene in Top Gun, but somehow find human rights more amusing.
