Did you see this week’s terrifying TV drama, Blackout? It starred one of our writers, Anthony Shuster…


I think I got the job because I knew what a digital generator was. They’re more fuel-efficient – important if law and order has collapsed and B&Q is shut

BlackoutDid you miss last week’s most talked-about TV show, Blackout? The one-off, documentary-style drama, which explores what could happen in the wake of a cyber attack on Britain’s national grid, is screened again this Sunday night at 10pm on the Freeview Channel 4Seven (@4seven) and it is well worth a watch.

But why are we telling you? Because we have a small claim to TV fame, as the lead character, Andy (pictured above) was played by one of our writers, Anthony Shuster. Andy is a self-sufficiency obsessed “prepper” from Hackney, smug in the face of disaster with his generator, stock of purified water, tinned food and family poo bags. But of course, Andy’s survival strategy doesn’t quite go to plan as the chaos around him and his middle-class London family home intensifies.

Since Anthony is a Green Party member and committed environmentalist (he wrote a great piece for us about the Shard and sustainable architecture in London), we wondered if the actor, who lives in Camberwell, had found the role rather close to home? “No!” he says with a laugh. “I think too many people’s conception of Green Party types is pretty close to the Andy character: smug, self-righteous and actually quite keen to see civilization crumble,” he continues. “But the prepper mentality is the complete opposite of being either big-g Green or small-g green; preppers are about looking after number one and fuck everyone else, whereas greens are all about community.”

“I will cautiously acknowledge some similarities between Andy and myself though,” he admits. “I’m interested in localism and initiatives like Transition Towns and the Brixton Pound, because I do fear that modern life is so over-reliant on insanely complicated systems and infrastructure that the tiniest glitch in one part can ruin people’s lives in another part.

“Plus national and global systems for things like food distribution are extremely energy- and therefore carbon-intensive: if we generated more renewable power that was used locally, and grew more food in Britain (and organically) so that our food system wasn’t so dependent on cheap oil and coal, then the nation would be less prone to disasters like the one in the film. But that’s the main intersection between my green preoccupations and Andy-style doomsday prepping.

“…And I think I got the job because the director was impressed that I knew what a digital generator was. They’re more fuel-efficient than ordinary generators – important if law and order has collapsed and B&Q is shut.”

Blackout is repeated at 10pm on Sunday 15 September on 4Seven, on Freeview. It is also still available on 4OD. @4Seven #Blackout

See Anthony as Andy in the clip below


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