The Andalusian version of Marc Giró

The signing of Marc Giró for La Sexta has spurred public television to try to replicate the successful formula. This Thursday, taking advantage of the audience wave left by the first World Cup match, El perro andaluz, the new late show by comedian Manu Sánchez, premiered. The spirit of Marc Giró hovered over the set. It even seemed that they had reused the set. Both presenters lean towards the same side: they fiercely defend left-wing values with an elegance that could seem right-wing. Sánchez, charming and bold, wears his hair slicked back with gel and sports a well-defined, bushy beard. He uses the neutral gender to greet the audience and boasts of his identity pride: Andalusianism. The show's band has the feel of a rociero choir and the skyline of Seville dominates the set. He vindicated his origin, his temperament, and his Andalusian accent, stating that it had closed doors for him in the past, and he highlighted his condition as a hard worker: “I have always been against the stereotype of being lazy and idle that they have imposed on us out there!,” he exclaimed. Like Giró, he has made the strategy of appropriating the most hostile language to confront it his own trademark. Hence the allegory of the perro andaluz from the film with which Lorca alluded to himself and which also connects with the most stoic political sanchismo. “We are dogs without breed, without a leash, and without a muzzle!,” he insisted, boasting of his fiery and defiant attitude. He displayed the label "TelePedro" as a media brand, greeted in the four co-official languages, and waved the flags of the seventeen autonomous communities with a certain federalist spirit. In his opening speech, too long and very political, he included the UCO, Trump, Zapatero, Netanyahu, Bad Bunny, the Pope, immigration, public healthcare, Vox, and an infinite mishmash of current affairs. He quoted Blas Infante and recited Manuel Molina, integrating Andalusian poetics into the monologue. When Manu Sánchez declaims, he embraces everything from the most flamenco affectation to the airs of a tele-preacher. He is one of those presenters who address the audience by shouting and who are already hoarse by the time they start the program. Marc Giró has a very funny sarcastic motto that says traumas should be monetized. And Manu Sánchez obeyed the strategy with discipline: five minutes after starting the program, he was already talking about his testicular cancer with metastases from three years ago, describing the orchiectomy and the chemotherapy treatment. The objective, however, was to use dark humor to talk about death as a defense mechanism for those who have nothing to fear and nothing to lose: “If anyone wants to sue me, let them take me to court. But they should know that I might not even make it!,” he challenged. The first interviewee was Manu Carrasco, to celebrate and accentuate the Andalusian idiosyncrasy, but he finished the program with the classic interview of cowards who suffer to gather viewers: Miguel Ángel Revilla, former president of Cantabria, as the golden goose of ratings. A shame, because in this context, it seems you have to use the north as an insurance policy.