Samaritan Snare was a reflection of modern society. With that in mind, portly actors were hired in order to give the impression of Tweedledum and Tweedledee from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass". Makeup supervisor Michael Westmore then created a prosthetic design for the actors, intending to make them look "whimsical". Appliances were created for their cheeks, foreheads and the tip of the actor's noses. A further addition was the eyebrows, as Westmore wanted them to look permanently sad. The final step in the makeup process was the creation of sets of false upper teeth, which while Westmore suggested was not immediately noticeable
Ian Hislop "Gush", a satire based on the first Gulf War, in the style of Jeffrey Archer. With Newman he also wrote the family-friendly satirical sitcom "My Dad's the Prime Minister" and in the early nineties for the Dawn French vehicle "Murder Most Horrid". Hislop and Newman wrote the Radio 4 series "The News at Bedtime", a satire on fairy tales which aired over the 2009 Christmas season. The series starred Jack Dee as 'John Tweedledum' and Peter Capaldi as 'Jim Tweedledee'; the two present the "news of the day" in the world of fairy tales, while arguing with each other as