Munya Chawawa, who is best known for his satirical comedy sketches aimed at educating and entertaining a Gen Z audience, has made a new documentary about Kim Jong-un’s North Korea. How to Survive a Dictator premiered at Sheffield’s DocFest on June 13, and will be broadcast on Channel 4 later this year.

The documentary attempts a fresh take on North Korea. It includes serious interviews with experts, activists and escapees from the country, interspersed with sketches and songs satirising aspects of North Korean political ideology and its leader.

It follows a long tradition of western media poking fun at North Korea, playing to public curiosity around the mysterious, seemingly eccentric, and sometimes bellicose regime of the Kim family.

In one sketch, Chawawa is dressed as Marvel’s Nick Fury. He portrays the North Korean regime as a gangster operation run by “The Revengers”, who are engaged in slavery, money laundering, and narcotics and weapons sales.

Another song parodies Kim as the “Fresh Prince” of North Korea. This is a nod to the fact that he came to the position of supreme leader seemingly out of nowhere as the regime sought to prevent a power vacuum emerging after the health of his father, Kim Jong-il, began to fail.

The use of comedy to portray the North Korean leadership as unhinged, immature and selfish tyrants bent on world domination and destruction is........

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