Director
Otto Bathurst
Leading Actors/Actresses
Rory Kinnear
Supporting Actors/Actresses
Lindsay Duncan, Donald Sumpter, and Alex Macqueen
Genre
Speculative Fiction; Anthology
Language
English
Awards
"The National Anthem" was nominated for Best Single Drama at the Broadcast Awards.
Date of Release
4 December 2011
Producer
Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones
Setting and Context
The episode is in modern-day Great Britain, taking place mainly within the prime minister's residence and offices on Downing Street.
Narrator and Point of View
There is no narrator; the point of view stays mainly with Prime Minister Callow, though it shifts to different characters depending on the scene.
Tone and Mood
The tone is macabre, comic and poignant; the mood is dramatic, tense, and ominous.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is British Prime Minister Michael Callow; antagonists include kidnapper Carlton Bloom, Home Secretary Alex Cairns, and Callow's wife, Jane.
Major Conflict
The major conflict in the episode is that Prime Minister Callow must defy his wife's wishes and his own disgust by having sex with a pig on live television to ensure the release of the captured Princess Susannah.
Climax
The episode reaches its climax when Callow has sex with a pig for over an hour on live television while 1.3 billion watch, only for the home secretary to learn that the princess was released thirty minutes before the broadcast began.
Foreshadowing
Early in the morning, Callow insists there is no way he is having sex with a pig; his staff, who haven't been able to come up with alternative strategies, respond with a collective silence that betrays their doubts. This moment foreshadows the climactic scene in which Callow, having run out of time, fulfills the kidnapper's demand.
Understatement
Home Secretary Alex Cairns's comment to the Prime Minister that the ransom demand portion of the kidnapper's video concerns him directly is an example of verbal understatement, as it is a vague warning that downplays the seriousness of the implications for Callow.
Innovations in Filming or Lighting or Camera Techniques
Comprising discrete, standalone episodes, Black Mirror has been credited by some critics as renewing viewer interest in the anthology series genre.
Allusions
The episode's title alludes to the Radiohead song of the same name, "The National Anthem."
Paradox
Despite the public humiliation Callow endures, his public approval rating triples following the broadcast that depicts him having sex with a pig, paradoxically contradicting his wife's concern that his image would be destroyed.
