It’s a gag worthy of an Armando Iannucci screenplay. And yet it is real. In this week’s presidential run-off in Ukraine, 41-year-old actor and comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political unknown, leads the pack of candidates. His 30% share of the vote eclipsed that of his nearest rival, the incumbent Petro Poroshenko (17%). With the final vote due on 21 April, Zelenskiy’s reputation as “one of Ukraine’s most popular comedians” has sparked bemused excitement worldwide. But who is he? And what is his comedy like?
In the Ukrainian television series Servant of the People, Zelenskiy’s character – a teacher called Vasiliy Petrovych Goloborodko – accidentally becomes president when a video of him ranting about politics goes viral. And just like the character in the series, in real life Zelenskiy comes across as affable, charismatic and easy-going.
Servant of the People is like a cross between The Thick of It and Johnny English. It even has a slight hint of House of Cards (the original, British version) with lots of Ukrainian oligarchs vying to be the post-Soviet version of Sir Humphrey Appleby. There are car chases, drunk politicians falling face-first into their food at state banquets and numerous opportunities for the actors to dress up in national costume and disguise themselves as Ukrainian Eurovision entries. (Check out the trailer for the feature-length version, with English subtitles.)
Russian-language YouTube is packed with clips of Zelenskiy, who has been a fixture on Ukrainian TV since 2003, largely because of his work as a founding member of Studio Kvartal 95, a production company with its own ensemble sketch group. Their humour is best described as halfway between irreverent and old-school. Zelenskiy recently told BBC News of his fondness for Monty Python. A typical Kvartal 95 Christmas special – with 2.8m YouTube views – features a scene in which Romeo and Juliet discuss the fate of Ukraine in rhyming couplets while Juliet decides whether or not to poison herself.
In one of the Saturday Night Live-style sketches playing on a loop this week on RT (Russia’s international state channel), Zelenskiy riffs: “You want to go into politics? Drop your trousers.” In another, Yulia Tymoshenko, the presidential candidate currently in third place, is portrayed as a malfunctioning robot who spills water over herself.
Studio Kvartal 95’s website mentions Zelenskiy’s “unique ‘sexy voice’ that makes women go crazy”. (It adds that he dubbed the voice of Paddington in the Russian language version of the movie, played by Ben Whishaw in the original, as if to prove this fact.) Filmed this week for At Home with the Zelenskiys (1.5m YouTube views), he talks earnestly about his love for his family and how he treasures every moment with his wife. At the press conference following the latest vote, he seemed to have dropped the punchlines completely. “All I care about is the people. Not politics. Not ambition. The people are what matter.”
