The new political series everyone will be talking about

Read any of the previews about Ryan Murphy’s highly anticipated new series The Politician and it’s almost guaranteed to be described as a “dark comedy”. But one of the show’s stars thinks this story hits much closer to home than people might think.

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Read any of the previews about Ryan Murphy’s highly anticipated new series The Politician and it’s almost guaranteed to be described as a “dark comedy”. But one of the show’s stars thinks this story hits much closer to home than people might think.

The Netflix series, Glee creator Murphy’s first since signing a $300 million deal with the streaming giant last year, stars Ben Platt, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jessica Lange and focuses on Payton Hobart, a wealthy high school senior with one ambition in life: to inhabit
the Oval Office.

Lucy Boynton in a scene from The Politician. Picture: Netflix

To get there the teenager must walk an obsessively pre-determined path that starts with becoming student body president of his prestigious Santa Barbara school. The lengths he goes to get there and the decisions he and his campaign team make highlight the absurdity of power and ambition — and the fight to get it.

Lucy Boynton, who plays Astrid, one of Payton’s competitors in the bitter electoral race, says while The Politician is a satirical look at the circus that is world politics at the moment told through the eyes of angsty teens, the story is steeped more in realism than fiction.

“What’s really interesting is how frequently people are describing it as this dark political comedy, but actually it’s scarily accurate,” the Bohemian Rhapsody star tells Insider. “A lot of the political topics we touch on and confront are very real and are conversations that are happening in our current climate… unfortunately.”

Ben Platt and Gwyneth Paltrow star in the series. Picture: Netflix

Identity and class are also major themes that run through the series.

Boynton’s Astrid is immaculately dressed, unshakeably outspoken and filthy rich. Or so it seems on the outside. As is often the case in our Instagram-perfect world, what you see isn’t necessarily the entire story and the New York-born, British-raised actor says Astrid’s story is an important one for young women.

“Having had the conversation about it for so long, we all know what we see online is a facade and yet for some reason we still seem to be OK buying into it,” she says. “To show Astrid at the beginning on the surface and then reveal the really dark underbelly of what her life has been like is really important.”

Murphy, the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning creator of hit shows Nip/Tuck, Glee and American Horror Story, says The Politician was born out of his “obsession” with ambition and why some people have it and others don’t.

Prolific series creator Ryan Murphy. Picture: David Livingston/Getty Images

“For me it comes from a place of obviously not being seen as a child and trying to fill up that void where, if I can become successful enough, I will get love in return and I think so many people feel that,” he says.

As the father of two young boys with photographer husband David Miller, Murphy is acutely aware of the dangers of the world they are growing up into. While he says he “wakes up every day with a renewed sense of hopelessness because it just seems like everything is getting worse and worse,” he also has hope.

“That generation is going to have to clean up our mistakes and literally save the world,” he says. “But I ultimately have great hope about it and this show in many ways is about the classing of my feelings which are a deep, dark cynicism about politics but also a hope that a young person can come along and lead us.”

* The Politician is available on Netflix from Friday

Platt stars as the show’s protagonist Payton Hobart. Picture: Netflix

Originally published as The new political series everyone will be talking about