What do Wolf Hall and Ukip: The First 100 Days have in common?

If you answered that both are works of fiction, you are, of course, correct. But it's the responses to these TV programmes that counts.

Only Tudor historians and students have kicked up about the revisionist portrayal of Thomas Cromwell as a thoughtful family man acting sensitively and rationally on behalf of his tyrannical master, Henry VIII.

It all happened half a millennium ago anyway, so it’s possible to appreciate Hilary Mantel’s wonderful resurrection of a reviled figure who helped to change England forever after by overseeing what became known as the Reformation.

By contrast, supporters of Nigel Farage — also seeking to change the face of what is now the United Kingdom — were anything but delighted by Channel 4’s Ukip spoof.

Evidently, complaints began flooding in soon after it was screened on Monday night.

Channel 4 fielded more than 250 while broadcasting regulator Ofcom counted three times as many. How sad, how very sad.

I can take David Starkey poking fun at Wolf Hall. But I am not prepared to accept without comment that more than 1000 people, let alone Farage himself, cannot recognise the key role played by satire in our society.

For a man who laughs a lot and heads a political party that regularly provides us with moments of high farce — immigrants cause traffic jams and gays cause flooding — Farage appears to suffer from a comedy bypass.

He also fails to appreciate that every political party, and every party leader, going back to the groundbreaking That Was The Week That Was, has had to endure ridicule on TV. It goes with the territory.

I am hoping Ofcom doesn’t respond to pressure to launch an investigation to establish whether the programme breached broadcasting regulations. Channel 4 has already contended that it did not, but it would, wouldn’t it?

It would be lamentable if the regulator treated the complaints seriously. It was a mockumentary and was billed as such.

I doubt, though I concede my opinion is not provable, that it changed any viewer’s mind about which way he or she will vote.

Indeed, I imagine it was largely preaching to the converted — well, in truth, to the unconverted, and probably the unconvertible.

They would have nodded at the scenes of riots between protesters and anti-immigration raiders and smiled at the scene of a factory closure following the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union.

Mostly, they would have been incredulous at the far-fetched notion of the programme-makers that Farage will end up in No 10.

It ain’t going to happen, and any sane person watching the programme would know that. Then again, sanity and Ukip are distant friends, are they not?

What cannot be denied is that Ukip has made a political impact that has taken everyone, including the major parties, by surprise. It is a phenomenon and it is fair that satirists, as well as mainstream pundits, comment on it.

I note that in one of his tweets on Monday, Farage said of Ukip that it is “the only party that believes in Britain”.

Believing in Britain is not only believing in free speech but also allowing it to occur. Nigel, my dear chap, that’s what makes Britain truly great.

Roy Greenslade is Professor of Journalism, City University London, and writes a blog for the Guardian @GreensladeR