Boris Johnson is the archetypal clown, with his antic posturing and his refusal to take anything seriously. So how did he end up in charge?
The long-running German satirical show Extra 3 recently featured a sketch with the following voiceover: “From the people who brought you The Crown – the epic saga of the Queen – now comes the ridiculous story of this guy, a notorious buffoon at the head of a country … The Clown.”
The word “clown” has often been used in a flippant or dismissive way with regard to Boris Johnson. But the underlying paradox is that it is only as a clown – a fool in the oldest and deepest sense of the word – that his character can truly be understood. What happens when you make the clown king is what we in the UK have been witnessing in real time. With the success of the vaccine, though, a new question emerges: can one archetype transform into the other? Can Johnson creep away from his clownish past altogether?
