Hi. I’m Madeleine Brettingham, a British writer and performer for TV, radio, print, theatre, stand-up and here.
You might’ve seen my writing on Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, The News Quiz, That Mitchell & Webb Look, read me in the TLS, The Fence, seen me at a show… or just come across something like the below on social media.
Who knows, maybe you’re even a member.
If so, you’ll fit right in. Because this is Madeleine Brettingham’s Luxury Filth, where I write the stuff that’s too beautiful and/or deranged for TV.
That includes essays…
“Of course, a large part of me does not want this technology to exist. Seeing a pitch-perfect Rimbaud parody spilling down my screen like blood on a cursed scroll, I feel like a farmhand gawping at a threshing machine in horror, caught between anguish and knee-jerk bravado.”
- Army of Me, on AI
Jokes…
“Mummy and daddy think it’s very important that the kids are educated in proper music from the good old days. Music like the Chemical Brothers and Basement Jaxx. So they’re taking their kids for a long bank holiday weekend in the countryside, where they can recapture their youth by taking half a pill and failing to have sex in a bell tent.”
- 7 British Festivals That Don’t Exist But Should
…And short fiction.
“Britain is broken,” they said. “Our political system is in tatters. Your house is on fire. And somewhere a small Tunnock’s teacake has achieved sentience and is screaming in horror at a Union Jack. The country is in turmoil. And, like in times gone by, there is only one thing we can turn to in order to heal our wounds: human sacrifice.”
Come for the luxury, stay for the filth.
Or, y’know, vice versa.
