Zelensky’s story is so extraordinary it ought to be a Hollywood movie… CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Last Night’s TV
The Zelensky Story (BBC 2)
That is no more improbable than what happened in Ukraine, where the diminutive Saturday-night variety star and professional badass Volodymyr Zelensky has been transformed not only into president, but perhaps the most effective, courageous and charismatic war leader since Winston Churchill.
Until 2022, Ukraine was – like Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, in the words of Neville Chamberlain – the archetypal “faraway country,” inhabited by “people we know nothing about.”
People in the UK who had heard of Zelensky may have known that he had won the Slavic version of Strictly and starred in a sitcom called Servant Of The People, in which he played an ordinary man unexpectedly elected president.
Zelensky’s story has generated such charming and extraordinary fame that it should become a Hollywood movie – and undoubtedly will, one day.
Footage of Volodymr Zelensky talking about his teenage years in The Zelensky Story, via BBC
Also featured were interviews with both the President and his First Lady, Olena, who were astonishingly honest about their marriage and the tensions that came with it.
The show, which can be streamed on Channel 4, was partly filmed in the ridiculous palace built for Zelensky’s corrupt predecessor Viktor Yanukovych, complete with a pirate galleon and private zoo.
The Zelensky Story chronicled a rise to fame so charming and extraordinary that it should be a Hollywood movie — and undoubtedly will be, one day. But it also featured interviews with both the president and his first lady, Olena, who were stunningly honest about their marriage and the tensions that came with it.
He clearly adores her and has since he first saw her in high school. “One of the best moments of my life,” he said, speaking into the camera. “I just looked at her and I guess I just liked her, and that’s it.”
Olena wasn’t so easily struck. “He kept coming to my house, calling me,” she said with a grimace. “And then I noticed I got used to it. When he went somewhere for three days, it was the first time I thought maybe I really needed him.”
The stunning revelation, however, was how he hid his political intentions from her. At the height of his pre-recorded TV variety show on New Year’s Eve 2018, Zelensky announced his intention to run for president — and the first Olena heard about it was when she watched the broadcast with her husband by her side. She’s still not happy about it.
Other friends were more reserved, but a picture emerged of an ambitious young actor who was fiercely loyal to those who stuck by him – a born leader, with a deep distrust of Russia and its dictator, Vladimir Putin.
Without straying from reality, this fantastic three-part documentary explains Putin’s obsession with conquering Ukraine and charts the events leading up to the 2022 invasion.
It also captures Putin’s personal dislike for Zelensky, who ridiculed him in his TV comedies with flashes of satire, once pleading “SOS for us, SOS Ukraine” to a cheering audience.
‘SOS us’ means one thing in English… and something else, much ruder in Russian. Like Ant and Dec, Zelensky was funnier because he was small, but he never lacked courage.