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Hello, my name's David Rundsenman and this is past-present future, the History of Ideas podcast.

Welcome to 2026, whatever it may bring. Happy New

Year. Our first episode of the year is an addendum, a coda, to our Films of Ideas series. A one-off

episode about a play and a film, essentially a piece of writing, that was mentioned in the episode I recorded

with Lee Hall about my dinner with Andre, written by Wallace Sean. And Lee Hall mentioned

Wallace Sean's play, The Designated Mourna, as one of the great political fictions of our time.

It is one of the great works of literature of our time,

and it is extremely eerie to read it in 2026. I'm going to try and explain why.

Wallace-Shorn is an unusual figure in the arts, if that's the word to use, because as he himself said in an interview he gave in the Guardian a few years ago, he makes his living acting toy animals in the sense that he's the voice of Rex the dinosaur in Toy Story.

He's a comic actor.

He is a cameo actor in the sense.

He's best known for sometimes scene stealing little performances in bigger films, and particularly

known for his appearance. He looks a little bit like a toy

animal. He's the teacher in Clueless. He's in the Princess Bride. His first screen appearance,

...