Charlie Brooker hopes coronavirus pandemic won’t make ‘psychotic strongman politicians more secure’

Writer also said he has no plans for further episodes of ‘Black Mirror’

Charlie Brooker has discussed the long-term impact of the coronavirus pandemic, saying he hopes it does not make “psychotic strongman politicians more secure”.

The Black Mirror creator, who has made a career out of imagining the worst, told the Radio Times: “If you look at what happens in classic dystopian fiction – where everyone turns on each other immediately – so far that hasn’t happened. It’s not to say it won’t.

"But I pivoted quite early to an optimistic view that this is terrible but, at the end of it, there’s a possibility that we’ll have the stomach to realign society a little.

“Is this forcing our hands to address financial inequality and climate change? You hope that’s the outcome, rather than that it makes psychotic strongman politicians more secure.”

Brooker added that his screenwriting has prepared him for the global crisis. “Because I’ve really always expected something like this to come along, I think maybe I’m not going through quite the level of psychological adjustment as some other people,” he said.

“If you’ve spent years anticipating the worst, oddly, when the worst happens, you can stop worrying about that possibly happening because it has. So I’m dealing with this on a personal level far better than I would have anticipated.”

In the same interview, Brooker said he had no plans for further episodes of Black Mirror.

However, BBC2 announced last month that the writer’s Screenwipe series would return for a coronavirus special on Thursday 14th May, titled: Charlie Brooker’s Antiviral Wipe.