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BBC Three’s latest documentary opens with a man floating down a London street in a smart black turtleneck and grey suit jacket, increasingly alarmist string music swelling around him. “In a world of ever-widening economic divides,” he begins, gesticulating wildly to the camera as he walks through lavish Knightsbridge, “the BBC have asked me, Shabaz Ali, to answer one burning question: are billionaires bad?” You would be forgiven for thinking that this was another documentary of the kind the channel is known for: well-intentioned and well-made programmes, fronted by presenters such as Stacey Dooley and Zara McDermott.
Then the camera zooms out to reveal another camera pointed in Ali’s face, and the music stops: “Er, yeah,” he says. “They are!” He strides off, mock end credits playing at triple speed. As it turns out, Shabaz Asks: Are Billionaires Bad? isn’t one of those BBC Three documentaries that boils down important societal goings-on for gen Z, but rather a parody of the genre. It’s a bit of a risk to send up one of the things your channel is best known for, as if ITV started broadcasting spoof versions of those dark psychological thrillers where a heavy-drinking police detective is haunted by an unsolved case from 20 years ago.
Somehow, though, Shabaz Asks: Are Billionaires Bad? works. Much of its success is down to Ali himself – a former teacher turned TikToker and self-proclaimed “povvo king” from Blackburn. He rose to internet fame in lockdown, reacting to outlandish, out-of-touch content on social media with a straight face (“You can barely afford a meal deal from Tesco, let alone $5,000 worth of caviar. Why? Because you’re poor …”) Here, he disarms the mega-rich and those in their orbit by appearing slightly gormless, promising at the outset to “[do] the Louis Theroux stare when I can’t think of a comeback”. He then uses his uber-dry wit to take the mickey out of his subjects (at the “winter home” of Phones 4u founder John Caudwell in Colorado, Ali asks his unimpressed host whether he has “a Batcave, or one of those big boards where you have a world map [for] conquering stuff”). Elsewhere, the economist Faiza Shaheen schools Ali in the economics of becoming a billionaire. But he has a more pressing question: “What’s billionaire shortbread?” At the back of a get-rich seminar hosted by Joseph Valente, a former winner of The Apprentice, the camera pans to Ali, doodling the letter S on his notepad.
It might all sound a bit Philomena Cunk, more of a comedy performance than anything else. Yet, Ali has actually managed to make a decent documentary, by going so ham on the ridiculousness of the issues at hand that the very concept of a billionaire does start to feel silly. The Green party leader, Zack Polanski, has a particularly good comeback when Ali asks him whether his party are scapegoating billionaires. “I’m very happy to scapegoat billionaires”, he counters, “because otherwise we’re scapegoating migrants, trans people, disabled people, people who can’t get a job …” Mic drop!
Much of the time, though, the “povvo king” shtick gives way to what are clearly Ali’s real thoughts and opinions. When he meets Emily Abraham – who sells luxury bags to celebrities and royals – he is incredulous. “I grew up working class, my dad was a taxi driver, my mum was a housewife,” he explains, “but they could afford 20 years ago to buy a house … hard-working people, teachers, could go on holidays. Now, it’s not the case. The gap is becoming so wide that an average person can’t do normal things.” At Abraham’s shop, £190,000 can buy you an Hermès Faubourg Birkin, modelled after the Paris street of the same name. In Blackburn, he says, it could buy an actual two-bedroom house. Abraham grew up in poverty and agrees to an extent with what he says. “But the reality is that we do have people with money, and they do want to spend it …”
Are Billionaires Bad? is a pilot of what one day might become a series, with Ali doing that part-Theroux, part-Cunk thing and doing it well. But if it does continue, its makers will need to decide whether it is a proper documentary, a comic endeavour, or the funniest, most cutting hybrid of the two that TV has ever seen. Maybe the super-rich are just too easy a place to start; indeed, says Caudwell, “I’m not a fan of billionaires either.”
