Dan Douglas started Duke Smoochem as a Twitter joke. Now the project has spiralled into an epic portrait of a declining nation – with everyone from Matt Hancock to GB News in its satirical crosshairs
The Daily Mail would be horrified if it knew what it had spawned. Back in 2021, when news broke of Matt Hancock’s lockdown-breaking affair, the tabloid printed a floorplan of the health secretary’s office, complete with details such as “queen painting” and “kiss door”. For most people, it was unnecessary detail added to one of the most nauseating moments in modern politics. But for Dan Douglas, a 39-year-old from London, it served as artistic inspiration.
“It reminded me of a map from a video game,” he says. As a 90s teenager, Douglas had adored the first-person shooter Duke Nukem 3D. “I was the perfect age for its relentless pixelated gore and crude humour. Playing it felt almost illicit,” he says. So wouldn’t it be fun, he thought, to re-create the Hancock scandal using that game’s built-in level editor? That should get a few laughs on Twitter, he reasoned. And then things spiralled out of control.
