“The Cry of the Rich and the Terrible”: The Song That TV Villains Love to Sing | television

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Industry, Season 4, Episode 6.

If you’re up on the latest developments in the industry (if not, proceed with caution) you’ll know that Kit Harington’s character, Henry Mock, spent Season 4 in more of a nightmare than usual. He was depressed, drunk, suicidal and lustful in equal measure, all of which culminated in the final episode in a sweaty affair with a man in a club.

How do we know it’s completely gone off the rails? This one’s easy: the club scene is immediately preceded by a shot of Mock in the shower singing Because He’s an Englishman from HMS Pinafore. And he wasn’t the only one lately. In The Night Manager, Hugh Laurie explodes into a rousing verse of the song. You probably don’t need reminding that his character Richard Roeper is, to put it mildly, a bit of a bad egg.

Maybe this is expected. Although Gilbert and Sullivan’s works have gained a reputation for being amiable, gregarious, and a bit ostentatious, “Because He’s an Englishman” is actually a biting satirical piece of faux patriotism. Although it sounds like something he might roar “Last Night of Prom,” the song speaks to a kind of blind nationalism that bases exception solely on where one is born. “For he may be a Russian, a Frenchman, a Turk, or a Prussian, but despite all the temptations of belonging to other nations, he remains an Englishman,” the letter said.

No wonder the song became a rallying cry for the rich and the terrible. Both Mock and Roper’s sense of superiority is diminished by birthright. There aren’t many songs that can capture this feeling of sheer precision of “For He is an Englishman.”

But what’s interesting is how its use has evolved over time. Before this year’s explosion, the song had been used here and there on television, and not always to connote villainy. Perhaps the most famous example is the episode of The West Wing that paraphrases the song in its title, Season 2, and that’s certainly to their credit. Here, two characters bicker over the song, unable to decide whether it’s from HMS Pinafore or The Pirates of Penzance, before the episode ends with most of the main cast singing the song together.

In all honesty it’s a little empty. The song is performed without any real thematic cohesion. It’s simply a reference that allows some vaguely insufferable people to show everyone how much they know about musicals.

Another rendition of the song without much meaning is House; In the opening episode of Season 6, Dr. House sings the song to cover up the noise of faking a urine sample. The insinuation here, of course, is that the actor playing House was actually an Englishman, Hugh Laurie, who clearly loves this song more than anything else on earth. In fact, it is quite possible that Laurie is the only performer to have performed this song twice in two different shows. He is almost certainly the only actor to have performed it in two different accents. In his native English in The Night Manager, and in the geographically non-specific American accent he had to adopt in House.

However, despite this rush of new renditions, the gold standard for TV use because he’s an Englishman remains The Simpsons’s Cape Feare, arguably the best episode of the best series ever made. After the rake joke, the tattoo joke, and the “Bart, do you want some cookies?” The joke comes at the moment when Bart Simpson pauses for a moment by flattering Sideshow Bob’s ego, asking him to perform HMS Pinafore in its entirety. He obliges, and his performance ends with a rousing explosion of Because He’s an Englishman, concluding with a round of applause and a dropped union jack.

It’s perfect because it hits every aspect of the song with complete ease. It has the conceit of The West Wing, and exposes the anglophilic pretensions of Sideshow Bob. Also, let’s not forget that Sideshow Bob is an absolute bastard, so he covers the villain quarter as well.

The fact that so many villains are singing the song in 2026 obviously speaks to how the UK is perceived at the moment – ​​isolated, stuck in the past and out of touch with reality, but still strangely full of itself – but we still have a long way to go before we can beat The Simpsons. Maybe let’s have Hugh Laurie stand on the rake when The Night Manager returns.