― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 12:24 (seventeen years ago) link
Ricky Gervais: Step into my office
He created one of the great sitcoms. He is a very funny man. And he's concerned about his 'legacy'. Which is exactly why Nicholas Barber would like to have a quiet word with Ricky Gervais
Published: 14 January 2007
Ricky Gervais opens his new live show wearing a plastic crown and a regal red robe, with his name in lights behind him and a six-foot model of an Emmy award to his left. "Not too much, is it?" he asks with mock-concern, but the answer is, no, it's not too much. If anything, it's not enough. Once he's slipped off the fancy dress, the reigning King of Comedy strolls around the stage for an hour and a bit in his trademark jeans and black T-shirt. He couldn't be more relaxed if he was at home in his pyjamas (which he is, he says, by 6.30 most nights).
He's such a natural comic that he gets laughs every time he unleashes his falsetto sarcasm or his saliva-soaked giggle. He skilfully deconstructs his stories as he's telling them, and he slips nimbly back and forth across the boundaries of taste, so we're never quite certain how offended to be.
But compared to any other stand-up show in a venue the size of Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall, it's a lackadaisical performance. Between swigs from a beer can, Gervais recounts a few chat-show anecdotes, does some student bar stuff about how nonsense songs don't make sense, has a smirk at those dunces who abused a paediatrician because they thought he was a paedophile, and dishes up regular portions of ironic homophobia.
At least, I assume it's ironic. When he makes an Aids joke, and then mutters, "I won't do that one in Brighton," I'm not 100-per-cent sure why it's less objectionable than it would have been if Jim Davidson had made the same remark. Overall, it's an amiable show, but there's not much in the way of depth or quotable punchlines, and there's no theme beyond the tour's title, Fame: doing charity gigs, signing autographs, being misrepresented in the tabloids, hugging Chris Tarrant. You'd assume that someone who didn't start writing The Office until his late thirties would have a stock of pre-fame memories to transmute into comedy. There was his stint in an Eighties pop duo, and then as a university entertainments officer, to name the two best-known jobs he had before he made headway at XFM and on Channel 4's 11 O'Clock Show. But instead of mining these veins of material, Gervais seems obsessed by his own celebrity. He's like one of those rock bands who get to their third album and can't dredge up anything to write songs about except groupies, hotel rooms and the disappointments of being a multi-millionaire.
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. Since The Office brought Gervais sudden fame and fortune, he's been the proverbial kid in a candy store, living out the fantasies of every film and comedy geek. He made a guest appearance on Alias because he was a fan of the show. He wrote an episode of The Simpsons, and turned up in it in cartoon form. He became friends with Jonathan Ross, as every rising UK comedian is contractually obliged to do. When Channel 4 offered him his own interview strand, he jumped at the chance to badger his heroes, Larry David, Christopher Guest and Larry Shandling. His first film roles seem to be motivated by hero-worship, too. Having shone as a pompous boss in The Office, he can now be seen cameoing as a pompous boss in both Night at the Museum and For Your Consideration. Neither film is very good, but they did allow him to hang out with Ben Stiller and Christopher Guest, just as his role in the forthcoming Stardust let him share a studio with Robert De Niro.
"It's like winning a competition," he said in one recent interview. "It's like, would you like to play with Spinal Tap for a day? Yes. Would you like to play with The Godfather for a day? Yes." Gervais is not the first British comedian to jump on a plane to Hollywood, of course, and there's nothing wrong with mutual appreciation sessions with your idols. Indeed, there's something sweet about such a major star letting his inner fanboy come out to play. As his collection of Golden Globes and Emmys attests, the American entertainment industry loves the man from Reading, so you can hardly blame him for loving it back. Who wouldn't want to be Peter Lawford in a comedy Rat Pack?
On the other hand, it's getting harder to ignore the weird disjunction between the way Gervais talks about his career and the way it actually is.
Ever since The Office began broadcasting in July 2001, its star and co-creator has been repeating in interviews that he's primarily a writer and director, and that he gets "no joy from seeing my fat face on the screen". Initially, he said he didn't want to do too much TV as himself because he wanted viewers to enjoy the illusion that David Brent and his colleagues were real people; that was why he cast unknown actors.
He even boasted, somewhat ungallantly, that he'd turned down roles in Pirates of The Caribbean and the other films which went on to feature his Office co-stars. "Secretly I think I'd be quite good on QI," he told one interviewer, misinterpreting the word "secretly". "But you have to discipline yourself and you have to ration yourself. I can get sick of someone I like within the space of a weekend if I see them on two quiz shows and then in the Sunday paper." It's a strange statement from someone who once fought Anthea Turner's husband in a televised boxing match.
The Ricky Gervais who talks to journalists is a publicity-shy artist with exacting principles. "That quest for excellence, and also the legacy - I think about that," he said in The Radio Times. "I don't know if that's because I came to it older, but we really want to to have a great batting average. We don't want to let our guard down. You do it because you want to be proud of it." To Esquire, he pronounced: "When you're creating art, you've got to be a complete fascist." To GQ, he described himself and his co-writer and co-director, Stephen Merchant, as "comedy fundamentalists". He's often said that he doesn't rate many British comedians after Stan Laurel. "American comedy is better. It aims higher," he told Esquire. This Ricky Gervais is an ascetic, slightly intimidating perfectionist. And yet the other Ricky Gervais, the one who's all over the media, is someone who knows he won't be in the limelight forever, and who wants to revel in the exposure, the side projects and the glamorous friendships while he can.
It's impossible to exaggerate just how successful he's been. The Office has been broadcast in 80 countries, and remade in several, including the hit American edition with Steve Carell in the lead role. Sales of the British Office DVDs were record-breaking - four million is the current figure - and, as the tongue-in-cheek introduction to his live show reminds us, he's won an Emmy, two Golden Globes and six Baftas.
But this astonishing Midas Touch doesn't stop a large proportion of his work falling short of the benchmark he's set himself. His current stand-up tour, the fastest selling in history, sees him sitting right in the middle of his comfort zone. Podcasts of The Ricky Gervais Show are another record-breaking hit, but as funny as they can be, they consist largely of his XFM producer, Karl Pilkington, reeling off outlandish theories, while Gervais and Merchant berate him for not being as well educated as they are. And if his trio of children's picture books, Flanimals, hadn't had Gervais's name on it, the publisher would have sent it back with a polite note saying that it wasn't what they were looking for.
And then there's Extras. At the risk of inviting hate mail, I'd argue that Gervais and Merchant's second sitcom is, objectively, a patchy programme. Yes, it had its laughs. The fizzy water incident is destined to join Del Boy falling through the bar in all future bank holiday retrospectives of The 100 Best British Sitcom Moments. But it always felt less like a fully-formed show than an exercise in muscle-flexing by two writer-directors who had realised how powerful they were. They wanted superstars, they wanted location shooting, they wanted no canned laughter and almost no supporting cast; they had a list of minorities for the characters to upset and they wanted to tick them off methodically, week by week. Everything they wanted, they got.
The mysterious aspect of Extras was that it drew almost entirely from Gervais's own experiences in television, and yet it couldn't shake off a whiff of fakeness. It missed the satirical targets which were right in front of its creators' noses. Take its famous guest stars, for instance. On the programme which had the biggest influence on Extras, The Larry Sanders Show, the celebrity guests challenged us to spot where they ended and their scabrous self-parodies began, something Gervais himself does brilliantly on talk shows and on stage. But in Extras the celebs were all caricatured so ridiculously that there was never any danger that they might have been revealing their dark private selves. Did anyone watching it ever suspect that Daniel Radcliffe goes around propositioning actresses twice his age, or that Orlando Bloom pathologically hates Johnny Depp, or that Ben Stiller has exactly the same speech patterns as David Brent? Probably not. The actors could congratulate themselves on being good sports without the slightest risk.
Beyond that, there was the implausibility of Gervais's character, Andy Millman, being hoiked to stardom from work as a "background artist" even though - unlike Gervais - he had no TV-comedy experience. There was also the bewildering animus against the BBC, which was forcing Andy to wear a bad wig and specs in his sitcom-within-a-sitcom; when did that last happen in the real world? But what was more damaging was the series' grating inconsistencies. Sometimes Andy would be as crass and tactless as David Brent ever was, whereas at other times Andy would be the judicious one, and the solecisms would be parcelled out to his friend Maggie or his agent, played by Merchant.
In their introduction to the Extras script book, the writers say that they wanted a change from Brent. They wanted "Andy to be more like us: more normal, more self-aware, educated and liberal-minded, with a half-decent sense of humour". And so he was - some of the time. But he was also a man who saw a Bosnian refugee's photograph of his murdered wife, and then chided him for his choice of developer. "Oh, you missed a trick," he said. "Truprint give you a free film when you get something developed. So you're a mug." And witness the way Andy was shocked when Keith Chegwin grunted that the BBC was run by "Jews and queers" - and I'd love to know when anyone in showbusiness last said that - but was also horrified when a schoolmate he hadn't seen in 20 years thought he might be gay himself. (More only-just-ironic homophobia there.) "Andy's not a jerk at all," said Gervais in the Onion AV Club last week, but when it suited the joke, Andy mutated into David Brent multiplied by Basil Fawlty.
Whereas The Office took such pains to fool us, for half an hour at a time, that we were flies on the wall of a genuine paper merchants', Extras required viewers to give it the same leeway that they would a pantomime. In a single episode of the second series, Andy was at the BBC, filming a sitcom, and yet the same sitcom was already on air, getting a critical pasting, and Andy was also auditioning for a play, rehearsing it and performing it. Assuming that he wasn't supposed to be a Time Lord, Gervais and Merchant had given up caring whether their programme had any internal logic or not.
At the risk of inviting yet more hate mail, I'd suggest, too, that even in the second series of The Office, there were signs that its writers already believed the hype. Gareth was more obnoxious; Brent was more self-deluding; the humour was broader and cruder. When Brent frothed at a birthday party about how he'd have sex with the Corrs, the raucous, drunken festivities slammed to a halt and everyone stared in disgust.
Fair enough, that's the kind of thing which happens in sitcoms all the time, but the previous series hadn't felt like a sitcom; it had felt like an unwittingly hilarious documentary. The second series could have been written by someone who had watched the first one, but hadn't quite understood it.
That's not to say that anyone who masterminded those first terrific six episodes of The Office shouldn't be proud of himself. Nor is this an attempt to start a backlash or chop down a tall poppy. After all, everything Gervais does is worth a look, because he's funny even when - as on the current stand-up tour - he's not trying very hard. And when someone has accrued so many millions, so many plaudits and so many famous admirers he might feel justified in letting standards slip.
But let's get his output into perspective. Perhaps we should ease off on the King of Comedy accolades until Gervais's batting average, as he calls it, is a little closer to Galton and Simpson's or Clement and Le Frenais's. And that's not likely to happen unless he eases off on the cameos, the podcasts and the children's books. Maybe now that he's done a stand-up show called Fame, he can get back to the sort of work which made him famous.
The first leg of Ricky Gervais's stand-up tour has sold out. Tickets for the second leg, beginning on 6 March, go on sale on Tuesday at www.ticketzone.co.uk
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article2152792.ece
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 12:26 (seventeen years ago) link
BURN.
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 12:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― vita susicivus (blueski), Monday, 15 January 2007 12:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Monday, 15 January 2007 12:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― Feargal Hixxy (DJ Mencap), Monday, 15 January 2007 12:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:11 (seventeen years ago) link
is this true?
― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:14 (seventeen years ago) link
xpost
― Feargal Hixxy (DJ Mencap), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:17 (seventeen years ago) link
― Feargal Hixxy (DJ Mencap), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:17 (seventeen years ago) link
― Michael Philip Philip Philip Philip Annoyman (Ferg), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:17 (seventeen years ago) link
xp
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:18 (seventeen years ago) link
I would say that though, because I hate women.
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― vita susicivus (blueski), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:20 (seventeen years ago) link
Here's a scene. You're looking along your collection of CDs, or shuffling through your playlist, trying to find that new Lady Sovereign album or whatever. But you stumble across something else, something from 10 years ago - the Fugees, say."
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― vita susicivus (blueski), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link
That senile dribbling cunt with his own column in the Guardian weekend magazine.
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:24 (seventeen years ago) link
Cue stock that's no way to talk about Zoe Williams gag.
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― Michael Philip Philip Philip Philip Annoyman (Ferg), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:27 (seventeen years ago) link
I don't have a Wikipedia entry either.
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:35 (seventeen years ago) link
Radio 4 turns over the airwaves to solid gold laughter, as Steve Punt joins up with a host of stars, backstage movers and industry shakers from the comedy industry with a two-hour special.
Variety shows and radio were the traditional routes to comedy fame and fortune, but what about today? Super agents, DVD sales, straight-to-TV stars; where does radio fit in? Steve and a panel of guests pick apart the laughter seam of the modern comedy industry, as well as generating a few jokes along the way.
Includes News Summary at 9.00pm.
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:36 (seventeen years ago) link
like swimming in a cool sea and passing through a warm current, etc...
Where are the standards of today, I ask you.I don't have a Wikipedia entry either.
-- Marcello Carlin (marcellocarli...)
Oh, have I got one?
― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:38 (seventeen years ago) link
Whew.
― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:39 (seventeen years ago) link
also on the bad can someone please put Have I Got News For You out of its misery.
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 13:58 (seventeen years ago) link
At the risk of, on this reviewer's logic, inviting lynch-mobs to my door, I'd argue that Extras was shite.
― You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (Haberdager), Monday, 15 January 2007 14:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― vita susicivus (blueski), Monday, 15 January 2007 14:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Monday, 15 January 2007 14:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (Haberdager), Monday, 15 January 2007 14:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― vita susicivus (blueski), Monday, 15 January 2007 14:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― vita susicivus (blueski), Monday, 15 January 2007 14:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Monday, 15 January 2007 14:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 14:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 14:28 (seventeen years ago) link
To put things into context: Harry Hill aside, all British TV Comedy right now is total shit.
-- Ruairi Wirewool (horseproduction...), January 15th, 2007. (Ruairi Wirewool) (later)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
what were the chances of that happening? -- mark grout (mark.grou...), January 15th, 2007. (mark grout) (later)
If you can put CT and Green Wing on a par, you truly show a lack of discernment IMO. Frankly, now that GW has been and gone, I'm inclined to agree with Ruairi, minus the bit about Harry Hill.
-- You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (papiermachealamphibia...), January 15th, 2007. (Haberdager) (later)
If you can put CT and Green Wing on a par, you truly show a lack of discernment IMO.no it's just a 'higher' (or rather 'stricter') level of discernment.
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)
'the thick of it' will be back, later in the year, and so will 'peep show'. -- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)
but in a another more accurate sense... -- mark s (mar...), January 15th, 2007. (mark s) (later)
but then i do like Harry Hill so it's apples and roundabouts. -- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)
rubbish -- RJG (RJ...), January 15th, 2007. (RJG) (later)
so you keep saying -- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)
RJG's TV Burp -- Dom Passantino (juror...), January 15th, 2007. (Dom Passantino) (later)
Hmm. I was only talking about currently-running comedy shows. If Peep Show returns for a fourth bite at the cherry (and TTOI for a second), I will only be too delighted. Of course, the one I'm really looking out for is Nathan Barley II. -- You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (papiermachealamphibia...), January 15th, 2007. (Haberdager) (later)
i think it would be a big ask for there to be a 'great' uk comedy series to be running all 52 weeks of the year. i have low standards perhaps; but i don't ask for a 'great' film each month either. -- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)
of course i too want 'nathan barley' back. -- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)
They could drop scissors on a dog's head this time. -- Dom Passantino (juror...), January 15th, 2007. (Dom Passantino) (later)
uh, rose-tinted view there i reckon - but at least it was generating interesting discussion.one episode of Screen Wipe a month would be good. ditto TV Burp.
ha ha Dom OTM -- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Unread Messages as with 'green wing', take away the hype and the expectation it'll live up to 'the day today' and 'nathan barley' was 23 minutes well-spent. i lolled anyway. -- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)
i didn't laugh more than i did laugh etc. -- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 15:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 15:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― vita susicivus (blueski), Monday, 15 January 2007 15:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 15:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 15:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― Feargal Hixxy (DJ Mencap), Monday, 15 January 2007 15:06 (seventeen years ago) link
And Screen Wipe rocks.
― Johnney B English (stigoftdump), Monday, 15 January 2007 15:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― Feargal Hixxy (DJ Mencap), Monday, 15 January 2007 15:08 (seventeen years ago) link
if it is an act it's brilliant. if it isn't, you're right it's mystifying.
― ledge, Saturday, 6 April 2024 06:42 (three months ago) link
For me it's Joanne McNally this year, for absolute comedy snob reasons. She's just not for me. I don't rate her one bit.
I absolutely love John Robins (fellow Queen enthusiast that he is), and his attempts to stick a chopping board to a whiteboard really made us laugh this week. Otherwise it's all a bit meh so far. I love Nick's vampire costume, though.
Jamali was a terrible contestant, I remember, but that must have been a stressful season to be on. Total social distancing, whole country on edge, etc. But yeah, it's not a show to try to maintain your cool persona on. If being in control is your thing, you should not answer the call.
― trishyb, Saturday, 6 April 2024 09:27 (three months ago) link
i just find it odd that Steve P isn't sat in the traditional old man seat.
They sit in alphabetical order of first names, always have. They must have forgotten to get younger people with names later in the alphabet.
― ailsa, Saturday, 6 April 2024 09:32 (three months ago) link
Joanne would probably be a laugh to hang out with, but hardly a comic genius.
― chap, Saturday, 6 April 2024 09:43 (three months ago) link
> They sit in alphabetical order of first names, always have.
mind blown.
i kinda wish they'd have some of the Dave-era people back onto the bigger budget show
― koogs, Saturday, 6 April 2024 10:15 (three months ago) link
5, 7 and 9 are the best series imo. Don't think 8 was that bad either.
― Daniel_Rf, Saturday, 6 April 2024 11:32 (three months ago) link
I’ve seen Sam Campbell live and his energy is off the charts nuts
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 13 April 2024 01:50 (three months ago) link
This is amazinghttps://bsky.app/profile/blueno.se/post/3kqgtq5hlir2f
― Big Bong Theory (stevie), Friday, 19 April 2024 09:08 (three months ago) link
I watched this last night and noticed we were getting a lot of low angled shots showing the puddles but didn't twig that they'd edited out Nick Mohammed's reflection. I wonder if there's much more of that kind of thing they've included that hasn't been picked up on yet? (I know about them having the contestants sit in alphabetical order each series)
― soref, Friday, 19 April 2024 09:35 (three months ago) link
Ooh, I didn't notice about the puddle reflections, that's a nice trick. I'm sure there are loads of wee Easter eggs in the linking shots. It took me about three series to work out that Alex was holding up the number of fingers of the episode part in the inserts cutting to and from ads.
― ailsa, Friday, 19 April 2024 10:44 (three months ago) link
It was also kind of mindblowing for reasons I couldn't quite fathom that the age-split of teams has Nick on the old person team. So I looked them all up and it's because there's ten years between the four younger ones then another ten years up to Steve.
Sophie youngest by four years, Jon and Joanne about the same age, then Nick about five years older than them but still ten years younger than Steve.
― ailsa, Friday, 19 April 2024 10:49 (three months ago) link
do they always split the teams by age? I always assumed it was mostly about scheduling and who was available to film stuff at the same time.
― soref, Friday, 19 April 2024 10:54 (three months ago) link
I don't think it's always by age but they like to have the teams contrast imo, age is one way to do that.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 19 April 2024 10:57 (three months ago) link
It seems quite age-based most of the time (basing entirely on Brand and Baddiel here, tbf) I haven't really looked it up.
― ailsa, Friday, 19 April 2024 11:05 (three months ago) link
Alan Davies and VCM an obvious age-split one as well
― ailsa, Friday, 19 April 2024 11:06 (three months ago) link
Season 7 for example it was gender based, Jessica Knappett is the same age as Acaster and Phil Wang but got paired with Kerry Godliman.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 19 April 2024 11:07 (three months ago) link
The pairings aren't always age-based: Frankie Boyle and Ivo Graham developed a weird father-son relationship in the Series 15 group tasks, for example.
― Wry & Slobby (Portsmouth Bubblejet), Friday, 19 April 2024 11:55 (three months ago) link
I would have guessed Sophie was second oldest by a few years. She's had a hard paper round and is being played in the 'slightly crazy/menopausal woman' personality slot on the panel.
― Overtoun House windows (aldo), Friday, 19 April 2024 12:26 (three months ago) link
I was surprised as well but yeah she was born in '87!
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 19 April 2024 12:28 (three months ago) link
I honestly don't know how old I thought Sophie was, but I'd absolutely have gone "older than Joanne" every day of the week.
― ailsa, Friday, 19 April 2024 12:51 (three months ago) link
aw I thought *every* reflection of nick had been removed but it's only the ones in that task.
― ledge, Friday, 19 April 2024 20:23 (three months ago) link
Yeah I would've swapped Sophie and Joanne's real ages! (36 & 40 respectively)
― chap, Saturday, 20 April 2024 12:26 (three months ago) link
Sophie has definite eccentric aunt vibes
― chap, Saturday, 20 April 2024 12:27 (three months ago) link
I've been trying to work out who Nick Mohammed reminds me of and just realised it's Bobby G (the one from Bucks Fizz)
― Platinum Penguin Pavilion (soref), Wednesday, 1 May 2024 10:34 (two months ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29186
― koogs, Saturday, 4 May 2024 17:15 (two months ago) link
^ the pembleton crossword
― koogs, Saturday, 4 May 2024 17:16 (two months ago) link
Watched the episode last night. Picking away at the crossword, I've got about half done.
― ledge, Monday, 13 May 2024 13:49 (two months ago) link
aside from a kind of boring cast, this season also seems to have more team tasks and more tasks that are about creativity (like make a portrait of this person using the contents of the hamper), which are usually less fun imo
― na (NA), Monday, 13 May 2024 14:14 (two months ago) link
they were more fun, dare i say it, when it was lucy and sam doing it...
― koogs, Monday, 13 May 2024 14:53 (two months ago) link
(or bob or sally...)
i just prefer when the contestants are stressed out and tortured, not making fun drawings or videos or whatever
― na (NA), Monday, 13 May 2024 14:56 (two months ago) link
i agree this series is lacking something, there's no great spark between any of the contestants in the studio. anyway i finished the xword, had to reveal three or four but all solid clues imo, great job.
― ledge, Monday, 13 May 2024 15:05 (two months ago) link
steve and nick are the first people i've seen posting about their experiences on twitterx, which is nice. but maybe that's just an algorithm thing.
― koogs, Monday, 13 May 2024 15:21 (two months ago) link
I like the creative tasks. I agree that this series has generally been less laugh-out-loud funny than some, but I've still found it enjoyable in a more low key, gently amusing way. Maybe it's because there are fewer stand up comics than usual? (or at least fewer comedians who do wisecracking, riffing stuff rather than more character stuff?)
― Platinum Penguin Pavilion (soref), Monday, 13 May 2024 19:36 (two months ago) link
I find all the contestants likeable enough now (Nick is just hardcore adorable), but yeah not the funniest bunch.
Some of Greg's recent postmortems have been suffocatingly hilarious, on the other hand.
― chap, Monday, 13 May 2024 19:48 (two months ago) link
the channel 4 streaming service had some episodes of the Swedish version of Taskmaster available a while ago, and the Swedish one felt a bit like this, mostly not uproariously funny but the participants were all likeable and it was fun to watch, sometimes you don't want to see people straining to be funny or wring every last drop of comic possibility out of every riff.
― Platinum Penguin Pavilion (soref), Monday, 13 May 2024 19:58 (two months ago) link
I absolutely can't go Joanne McNally but the rest of them are very amiable and amusing without being annoying, and I also wish they had better tasks.
― ailsa, Monday, 13 May 2024 21:12 (two months ago) link
Agree on both counts.
― trishyb, Monday, 13 May 2024 23:06 (two months ago) link
Aw she's a bit grating but basically quite sweet.
― chap, Tuesday, 14 May 2024 07:07 (two months ago) link
ATTENTION, PUNKS:
lady parts actually good. and quite a scoop with the cameo.
was distracted by work through the taskmaster final and the announcement of next series contestants. andy, babatundi, emma, jack, rosy. couple of names i can't quite place.
― koogs, Saturday, 1 June 2024 12:06 (one month ago) link
Emma plays Rose Matafeo's flatmate in Starstruck. Babatunde seems mostly stand-up though he did do I'm a Celebrity recently and thus does things like Celebrity Gogglebox etc now as well. I assume you're familiar with the other three.
― ailsa, Saturday, 1 June 2024 16:10 (one month ago) link
banatunde's name is familiar certainly. QI? Hignfy? but i tend to avoid things with Celebrity in the title which don't involve them making things.
i have watched all 3 series of Starstruck but still can't visualise a flatmate. i hope she's even half as good as RM, one of my favourite taskers.
speaking of which, what happened to junior TM she was going to present?
― koogs, Saturday, 1 June 2024 16:25 (one month ago) link
According to this official-looking page, the tasks were filmed in late 2023, but the page hasn't been updated in months. Does seem a bit odd.
― trishyb, Saturday, 1 June 2024 16:29 (one month ago) link
(I didn't mean official-looking, but believable-looking, really.)
House of Games? xxpost to koogs
― ailsa, Saturday, 1 June 2024 19:52 (one month ago) link
i checked imdb and there's a bunch of things under 'self' like Last Leg and 8/10 cats and as yet untitled
― koogs, Saturday, 1 June 2024 20:49 (one month ago) link
We went to a filming of Junior Taskmaster late last year (it was fun) - the one we saw was a round/ heat, and the winners of each of those were going on to film more tasks and then there would be more studio business. Haven’t noticed the next round of studio sessions yet.
― Tim, Saturday, 1 June 2024 21:10 (one month ago) link
Taskmasterclass (task-masterclass or taskmaster-class?)
i had forgotten some of the earlier contestants completely
― koogs, Friday, 7 June 2024 15:09 (one month ago) link
the studio audience was a LOT closer when they were on Dave
― koogs, Friday, 7 June 2024 15:17 (one month ago) link
that taskmaster thing was a one-off, given there's something else in the slot next week.
lady parts contained quite the euphemism this week - kfc bargain bucket for one...
― koogs, Sunday, 9 June 2024 19:46 (one month ago) link