BBC’s Dead Ringers lampoons Huw Edwards scandal

‘We should leave The Sun alone so it can recover away from the public gaze,’ says mock-guest

Impressionists on the latest episode of BBC Radio 4’s comedy show Dead Ringers have roasted The Sun and the Tories in a skit about the Huw Edwards scandal.

Earlier this week, the BBC News presenter, 61, was revealed as the man who had been accused of paying a young person around £35,000 over three years, from the age of 17, for explicit photos.

His wife, Vicky Flind, released a statement saying that her husband is “suffering from serious mental health issues” and is now “receiving inpatient hospital care where he will stay for the foreseeable future”.

In recent days, The Sun newspaper – which originally broke the allegations – has been criticised for a headline stating that the presenter “could be charged by cops and face years in prison”, when the police have actually found no evidence of criminality.

The Friday 14 July episode of Dead Ringers, which starred Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Lewis MacLeod, Jess Robinson and Duncan Wisbey, opened with a mock-bulletin announcing: “After an extremely difficult and traumatic week, The Sun newspaper has gone into hiding. It has checked itself into an undisclosed location.

“A friend of the newspaper made this appeal just leave The Sun alone. ‘It’s just a poor, defenseless little newspaper that hasn’t done any harm to anyone. It’s getting harassed on social media for things it hasn’t done like checking facts. We should leave the poor thing alone so it can recover away from the public gaze and resume its job of destroying people’s lives.’”

Impersonators of Radio 4’s Today programme presenters Nick Robinson and Mishal Husain followed, with “Husain” announcing: “The week began with The Sun claiming a BBC presenter paid a young person for explicit photos, but there were three key words associated with the claim that cast doubts on the story.”

“Robinson” then chimes in with: “Those words being ‘the’, ‘sun’ and ‘newspaper’.”

He continues: “Then on Wednesday, the name of the BBC presenter was revealed. Rupert Murdoch joins me on the line.”

“Murdoch” then whines: “This is the trouble, you see, you BBC types with your messy private lives can never live up to the scrupulously squeaky, clean moral standards of The Sun. The idea of asking a young person to pose half naked, disgusts me.”

Huw Edwards presenting the news (BBC)

When told he did have topless women posing on page three of his newspaper for 44 years, “Murdoch” replies: “Yeah, but that was vastly different to nudity and it made me lots of money. We never implied there was any criminal behaviour, apart from that front page where we implied there was criminal behaviour.”

Asking for sympathy, “Murdoch” says: “You know, I would put myself into a secure facility, too. One filled with paranoid, delusional oddballs, but there’s no need as I already have The Sun offices for that.”

On Wednesday 12 July, The Sun issued a statement saying that it would cooperate with the BBC’s internal investigation process, adding: “The Sun has no plans to publish further allegations. We must also re-emphasise that The Sun at no point in our original story alleged criminality and also took the decision neither to name Mr Edwards nor the young person involved in the allegations.

“Suggestions about possible criminality were first made at a later date by other media outlets, including the BBC.

“From the outset, we have reported a story about two very concerned and frustrated parents who made a complaint to the BBC about the behaviour of a presenter and payments from him that fuelled the drug habit of a young person.

“We reported that the parents had already been to the police who said that they couldn’t help. The parents then made a complaint to the BBC which was not acted upon. It is now for the BBC to properly investigate.”

Another skit came next on Dead Ringers, with the impressionists acting out an interview between a journalist and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. In the sketch, Sunak keeps assuming that the allegations he’s being asked about are against a member of the Conservative party, because that’s what he associates with the words “allegations”, “inappropriate” and “scandal”.

When he eventually clocks that the subject of the scandal is the BBC, he instantly proclaims that whatever has happened is a “disgrace” and “heads must roll”.

The family of Edwards are receiving crisis management advice from former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, it has been reported. Read live updates on the Edwards story here.