BBC Piloting Comedy Chat-Show ‘Tonight With Vladimir Putin’ Hosted By Live CGI Version Of Russian Leader

The BBC is piloting a comedy chat-show format hosted by a CGI Vladimir Putin. The British broadcaster is testing out the semi-scripted talk show featuring a pastiche of the bear-wrestling global strongman.

Tonight with Vladimir Putin will launch on BBC Two as two episodes of 12 minutes. The episodes will feature Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell, Your Face or Mine? host June Sarpong and C-lister Joe Swash.

It will use live VFX, created using performance capture technology developed by creative studio Framestore, to enable a 3D digital cartoon of Putin to walk around and sit behind the desk, interviewing real human guests in front of a studio audience, all in real time.

Putin jokingly thanks Campbell for his part in making such a mess of things, while he makes Sarpong play a game of “Diversity Challenge.” In Episode 2, Vlad asks his first guest the same question he asked at the production meeting — ‘Who is Joe Swash?’ — before trying to get his head around feminism with Guilty Feminist podcaster Deborah Frances-White.

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Tonight with Vladimir Putin is created by Jasper Gibson, co-founder of The Onion-esque comedy site The Poke, and Joel Veitch, who runs Rathergood.com and Framestore’s Simon Whalley. The show is produced by Phil McIntyre Television and Framestore for BBC Two. Vladimir Putin is written and performed by Natt Tapley. The Commissioning Editor for the BBC is Rachel Ashdown and the executive producer for Phil McIntyre Television is Lucy Ansbro. Lindsay Jex is the series producer.