Anybody who witnessed the poonami of scandal which gushed through the Leveson Inquiry floodgates, implicating the government, the Metropolitan police and a host of media outlets and individuals could be forgiven for forgetting the powers-that-be originally tried to blame most of the ills of Fleet Street on "One Rogue Reporter".
So lest we forget that fact, Rich Peppiatt has chosen that as the name for an Edinburgh show which puts the boot in to the tabloid media during 60 minutes of catharsis for the former tabloid hack.
Peppiatt is a name many media watchers will have first encountered following his infamous "cascade of shit" resignation letter to The Daily Star. Until that point, he had kept his head down churning out copy about meerkats and Muslims, but it was his employer's stance on the latter which he says made him too uncomfortable to continue in the profession.
Since then Peppiatt has been a fixture in the debate about media ethics and took his turn in the witness box at the Leveson Inquiry. That opportunity came along at exactly the right time for a former tabloid hack willing to bite the hand that once fed him and there is definitely an element of 'wrong place, right time' about Peppiatt's notoriety.
Turning that notoriety into a genuinely funny 60-minute show however, is a whole other challenge. But having seen a preview of Peppiatt's 'One Rogue Reporter' - now playing daily at the Pleasance Courtyard - I saw enough to suggest he may be the right man to tell a very wrong story in a very funny way.
One Rogue Reporter
The show begins with a carefully edited montage of Leveson highlights to get people in the mood for an hour spent picking over the bones of tabloid methods and ethics, woven around five short films. It's easy to warm to Peppiatt and his material, but it is the films which most obviously set One Rogue Reporter apart from the fact many commentators could eloquently spend an hour making fun of the hypocrisies and idiosyncrasies of the tabloid press: such as the Daily Mail's obsession with young girls or the Express's convenient disregard for self regulation which Peppiatt pillories brilliantly.
In cahoots with documentary film maker Chris Atkins (Starsuckers), Peppiatt unleashes a series of tactics which will be all too familiar to the figures he pursues, from doorstepping the Mail Online's Martin Clarke to conducting an undercover interview with Kelvin Mackenzie using an assumed identity. He has also acquired some hidden camera footage of former News Of The World reporter Neville Thurlbeck.
Peppiatt's pursuit of Paul Dacre, while based around a stunt which called for a large rubber dildo and a big screen projector, offers some interesting insight into the lengths the Daily Mail boss has gone to defending the privacy he so enthusiastically denies others.
For those working in or watching the media, the circus of the Leveson Inquiry, underpinned by serious criminal investigations into the ethics and activities of the tabloid press has been unmissable. Peppiatt's Edinburgh show is a scathing, often very funny and occasionally surprising complement to that. It is frivolous in places and flippant at times but there is also a very serious, satirical spotlight being shone on some of the industry's murkier corners.
The preview show I saw was staged above a London pub, with audience members including seasoned journalists and Leveson witnesses such as Hugh Grant and Max Moseley. That constituted a 'home fixture' for Peppiatt but hopefully the show proves successful away from the media heartland and the circus of Fleet Street and the Royal Courts of Justice.
