Rolling UK Comedy Thread - "Ricky Don't Lose Larry David's Number

"Lolly Adefope, Hugh Dennis, Noel Fielding, Mel Giedroyc and Joe Lycett are in Taskmaster Series 4"

Picard surprisingly bad as HIGNFY host.

new Taskmaster is on tuesday nights.

apart from misreading half his cards, i didn't think he was terrible

I can't stand the fucker generally, and this strengthened that position.

he sounds more like brian blessed than ever

He was rather shouty wasn't he?

Osman always good value.

osman's great.

recently i heard an interview with jimmy carr in which he said panel show participants should (but sometimes don't) prepare properly: for cats does countdown do a few letter/number puzzles, for qi read some knowledgy/sciency websites, etc. osman clearly does his homework and treats the gig like a professional performance, which is why he keeps getting booked.

Also, he's an executive producer in Endemol.

yeah, he co-creates a lot of these formats, and he claims to have invented survivor (!)

I don't understand the Osman love tbf. He's always affable and I can't hold anything against him, but he also almost never makes me laugh. That whole ep was quite dispiriting.

I had to sstand up at a Shappi Khorsandi gig once to let him get to his seat. He was very apologetic and gave me a kindly "yeah, how's it going?" look while I was in the netherworld between "wait, I know that guy" and "oh, because he's on the telly".

he also almost never makes me laugh.

He rarely gives me a belly laugh, but very consistently makes me chuckle, which is much more than most panel show seat fillers can manage.

yeah, his role isn't really to be the funny guy. he's more likely to share a panel with ayoade, bea, lee mack etc on the comedy shows, and with more subdued people on the fact-based shows where knowledge/trivia ranks higher. if everyone were on johnny vegas's level it's all get tedious pretty quickly.

also, he's good at less obvious things like knowing when to shut up and let others speak, which can be the difference between these shows working and flopping. being rock solid is (imo) why he gets booked for loads of first episodes including the fake news show, insert name here (as a team captain) and this year's hignfy.

it's it'd all get tedious pretty quickly

i mean he also comes with dad jokes, but everyone's expected to be at least 20% funny on these shows unless they're kate williams or gyles brandreth or something

His dad jokes are of a pretty high quality.

Also Pointless is my favourite quiz show of all time so he gets a vast ammount of residual affection for that.

yeah, pointless was excellent right from the start and has stayed good through all sorts of changes, quite astonishing

chap, you might enjoy this:

http://youtu.be/w1Becfwtcr4

bloody embed didn't work

Oh cheers, I'll definitely check that out.

guys you have to stop watching all these panel shows

some bad news for you then

The Fake News Show, a panel show hosted by Stephen Mangan that looks at false headlines, is to return to Channel 4.

The comedy was devised as a one-off programme to be broadcast as part of Channel 4's Fake News Week in February. However, with the show attracting over 1 million viewers and gaining many positive reviews from viewers, it is to return to television for a series.

xp. the sheer enthusiasm for panel shows and comic book character movies is the most alienating aspect of reading ilx for me

I didn't know anyone anywhere was enthusiastic about panel shows tbh.

i like staring at them when i'm tired, not sure i'm enthusiastic

that said i'm impressed with how consistent the quality is, when other countries can't get the format to work most of the time. it's also an efficient way to see a specific roster of stand-ups without having to sit through arbitrary interviews with x musician/actor flogging their latest album/action film.

I think some comedians excel in the panel format. Can't think of examples right now.

I always think of panel shows as the lowest rung on UK prime-time television, and having lived elsewhere and seen what the equivalents are for that it feels like a pretty sweet deal, if that makes any sense.

as far as i know there aren't any panel shows on canadian tv. which is surprising because they like making cheap tat and getting a few comedians to joke about the news or whatever seems like fairly cheap tv.

Daniel_Rf - not sure what you mean by "lowest rung", you mean by cheap and easy to make? Because there's no way this is the worst trend on UK primetime tv.

I think some comedians excel in the panel format. Can't think of examples right now.

I rest my case, m'lud.

(xp) Definitely one of the worst though.

in terms of terrestrial light entertainment/variety there's the likes of strictly, bake-off and i'm a celebrity, and there's this. with some you get to learn a few light things (qi, insert name here), and with some you just get to see good comedians riffing off their peers. it's cheap inconsequential telly, but it's a good antidote to heavy stuff, e.g. last night i watched two episodes of better call saul and then cats does countdown before bed. it doesn't detract from the fleabags or the broadchurches, it's an antidote to them.

comedians who excel in the panel format(imo): romesh ranganathan, sue perkins, aisling bea (people disagree with this but eh), sarah millican, johnny vegas, david mitchell, jo brand, lee mack, katherine ryan, roisin conaty, rich hall. whether or not you like what they do, panel shows are a pretty good showcase for their abilities.

i mean if that's how broadcasters need to maintain uk content, it could be worse. in australia our networks repackage cheap shit from other countries and whack a local voiceover over the top. i'd sooner watch a good panel show than the 29th iteration of customs officials lecturing plane passengers for having a packet of seeds in their suitcase.

You lost me at 'good comedians'.

it's no small feat to hate every comedian who's ever been on a panel show but okay

Tom D- what's the best type of UK primetime? Because panel shows are a zillion miles above talent shows, big brother and most quiz/challenge shows. Anything that Sean Lock and Rich Hall can appear in is automatically better than those.

Ross Noble is pretty good on panel shows.

I'd ban most of the people you listed from appearing on any TV show, let alone any TV panel show. Rich Hall can appear on any TV show he likes though.

it's no small feat to hate every comedian who's ever been on a panel show but okay

It's a feat well within my reach tbh.

Sean Lock, Rich Hall, Ross Noble. I think you picked the only good ones there.

Forgotten the awfulness of soaps. But then nothing matches the excruciating agony of Strictly Come Dancing and The Gladiators.

i get the appeal of strictly but i'd sooner be garrotted with a fish hook

having said all that, panel shows probably don't belong in this thread tbh

Gladiators was better than every comedy panel show

There may be too many comedy panel shows and the pool of people that do them is so small that you can often see the same person on two different shows in the same night.

Someone asked why they changed the format of Room 101 from a single guest to three guests a while ago and was told that these days nobody is capable of holding an audience's interest on their own for 24 minutes. Not sure whether that's a comment on the celeb or the audience though.

AA's list contains some of my idea of lowest common denominator guests, but it's probably accurate as far as it goes. Would add Bob Mortimer, Osman, Comedy B, Milton, Acaster, Pascoe, both Mel and Sue...

some are definitely in the famous-for-being-famous camp, in that they're known to panel show audiences because they've been on panel shows. a bit like the way jade goody went on celebrity big brother because she was famous for being on big brother.

Well yeah, that's an route in for "Other comedians know you're funny* but you can't write a show to save your life".

*or possibly you just always get your round in / are good to borrow a tenner off.

these days nobody is capable of holding an audience's interest on their own for 24 minutes. Not sure whether that's a comment on the celeb or the audience though.

Comment on TV execs I'd say.

24 minutes of Aisling Bea though, can you imagine?

I'd never liked her much on panel shows but I saw her do a live set and actually enjoyed it quite a lot. NB this was at the same show as the Ardal O'Hanlon set described above so maybe she benefited from the contrast.

The sooner these people give up comedy and become actors the better.