Shortly after the election of Donald Trump, I interviewed the comedian John Oliver for this magazine. Oliver, in case you somehow overlooked this unmissable article, is an owlish Brummie who has become the surprise star of American TV comedy.

At the time, the nation’s clowns were having a jolly old time ripping into Trump, racking up huge ratings in the process. But Oliver was worried. “Trump is a challenge,” he told me, “because there is so much low-hanging fruit.” It would be easy to “do a lot of bad comedy” in the Trump era.

Boy, was he right. While the titans of late night are still pounding away at their favourite tangerine, Mussolini, it’s been years since anyone made a funny Trump joke. The comic…