“Do you know what’s behind those cameras?” a giddy Gus (Robert Duncan) asks his bewildered underlings at Truth News. “Young people!”. His team stare out into the audience disbelievingly. They scan the rows and rows of Cambridge Arts Theatre seats, testing Gus’ theory. I sit up a little straighter. I’m well aware that I’m doing quite a bit of average-skewing in the age department. It’s not enough. If it’s young people the team at Truth News is looking for, they’re onto plums.

As the only fourth wall break in the show, this moment demonstrates Drop the Dead Donkey: The Reawakening! knows exactly who its audiences are. This is a show, sure, but it’s also a pat on the back for anyone who watched the original. It’s chock-full of references to the show’s run, from Damien’s (Stephen Tompkinson) nasal impersonation of the long-suffering Gerry (“Damien, those crocodiles are too close! Damien, my legs are on fire!”), to a triumphant return of Dimbles the teddy bear (brandished overhead in a twist that would have M Night Shyamalan on the phone to Truth News in a second). The team behind GlobeLink News are back in force; joining Gus and Damien are Joy (Susannah Doyle), Helen (Ingrid Lacey), Dave (Neil Pearson), George (Jeff Rawle), and, as one of the flood of responses to the first Truth News broadcast puts it, “Hitler in a dress”: Sally Smedley (Victoria Wicks).

"Drop the Dead Donkey: The Reawakening! knows exactly who its audiences are”

There are some new faces: Julia Hills joins the cast as investigative journalist Mairead, while Kerena Jagpal’s Rita provides what Gus dubs his “youthful, non-white” representation. These new additions are tremendous fun. In fact, as someone who wasn’t born when the original series was airing, I felt a little like Rita, buoyed along on a current of deceit, madness, and Sally Smedley’s claim that David Attenbourgh got up to more than monkey business on remote shoots. But with a name like The Reawakening, sounding more like an Evil Dead sequel than a comedy show, this is a show that goes best with a starried (chequered?) history with the original. My recommendation for The Reawakening is two-fold: first, go see it. Seriously. Second, go watch all of Drop the Dead Donkey. It’s what I did as soon as I left the theatre.

“My recommendation for The Reawakening is two-fold: first, go see it. Seriously. Second, go watch all of Drop the Dead Donkey”

Writers Andy Hamilton (who I interviewed last year) and Guy Jenkin seem well aware they’re writing a reboot. But The Reawakening says ‘yes, and? ’, something that poorer entries into the endless slough of reboots fail to do. What does it say about Gus, that he’d willingly put together as close a facsimile to GlobeLink as possible? What ulterior motives could Helen, Dave, and George possibly have to re-enter the same hellscape they were trapped in thirty-odd years ago (spoiler art: the pay is really good)? The Reawakening is truly deserving of the title of reboot because it doesn’t just take the toys out of the chest again. It also asks why these toys are out of the box, why they were ever allowed to control the news in the first place, and why on earth are the alt-right so keen they stay on air?

"The Reawakening is truly deserving of the title of reboot because it doesn’t just take the toys out of the chest”

This subtle interrogation of what it means to be a part of the team from GlobeLink now, as opposed to back then, is also felt in the butt of most of the show’s jokes. Because here’s the thing. Snowflakes are an easy punchline. I get that. I’m used to comedians not so much punching down at us, as disgruntledly shouting something about cancel culture in our faces. So, when I cottoned onto exactly what Hamilton and Jenkins were doing, I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, GenZ and millennials face a bit of good-natured poking. That’s fair! We’re really annoying! But it’s more the quest of older generations to understand snow-flakiness that’s under fire. When the bathrooms at Truth News have their male/female signs doodled on until they look more like arcane symbols, you’re not laughing at the so-called woke brigade, but rather at the attempts of the older generation (Gus, I’m looking at you) to get to grips with this new way of doing things. It’s subtle, and maybe it shouldn’t have caught my attention when a beloved news anchor was being electrocuted – watch and see, trust me – but it’s just another example of why the GlobeLink team were worth shaking awake.

“Hamilton and Jenkins have managed to cram more jokes into two hours than we’ve had prime ministers since 2019”

Drop the Dead Donkey: The Reawakening! is the perfect antidote to the headlines today. Hamilton and Jenkins have managed to cram more jokes into two hours than we’ve had prime ministers since 2019. There’s a coffee machine that explodes all over the long-suffering George. There’s a Pope Drill. But The Reawakening also manages to feel like a manifesto for living with the headlines today. I didn’t laugh at one of Gus’ (admittedly hilarious) lines – “no one believes the news anyway… So maybe it’s healthier if it’s not true!” – because it felt so startlingly on the money. When I got back home and immediately watched Drop the Dead Donkey re-runs until morning, it struck me that it’s almost comforting to think of the team at Truth News/GlobeLink haplessly misinforming me, rather than the stream of false information and algorithmic news nowadays. The Reawakening reminds us that things have always been bad… It’s just that they’re a lot worse now.

Drop the Dead Donkey: The Reawakening! is on at the Cambridge Arts Theatre until Saturday 2 March