Poking fun at terrorists is not an easy thing to do, particularly when they are killing your own people. But for the past five years, Vaya Semanita (What a Week), a comedy show broadcast every Thursday on Basque television, has dared to do just that.

One gag had a hooded Eta gunman, a Spanish civil guard, a local policeman, a priest, a farmer, a cook and a Basque pelota player doing the Village People’s YMCA routine in front of the Bilbao Guggenheim. They throw their hats in the air, and the hats fall back on the wrong heads. It is a telling moment. In a society as close-knit as the Basque, it is common to find all the male archetypes represented in one family. Basques are hugely proud of their cuisine, but gastronomic societies have sometimes offered cover for terrorist activities. Nationalist priests have taken up arms against the Spanish state, and former separatists have become policemen. Beneath the different hats, the gag seemed to say, Basques are pretty much the same.