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

Perhaps in an inferior timeline in which Olivia Coleman had not caught the attention of the Academy she could be persuaded to make an appearance also.

Dane Baptiste would definitley do it if asked imo

would enjoy Kemah Bob, Sam Campbell, Chloe Petts, Sophie Hagen, Sikisa, Gabby Best, John Kearns, Judi Love

pascoe does rhod gilbert's job, or whatever it was called, i enjoyed it more than the premise suggested i would, mainly because of the Cubans, rather than her.

(was less like rhod gilbert's job thing and more like michael palin tbf)

the 'lock three comedians in hamley's overnight' thing was dreadful. i wonder how it would've been with female comedians? (probably uncommissioned)

Yes, that Tom Allen guy seems to have come out of nowhere in the last few months and I'm sick of him already.

he's the new romesh (when sara pascoe isn't being the new romesh). he's been doing the bake-off sister show for the last couple of years as well as all the usual suspects.

in fact he has a show tonight on 4 where he visits a town (wakefield in this case) and then does a show about it (ie, mark steel's in town). think it's a one-off.

I don't think he has a family, so it might give him more flexibility in saying yes to jobs this year.

I personally could do without seeing or hearing Richard Osman for a while. Between his book promotion and the BBC using House of Games as a cheap filler, I have had enough of him now. I'm not saying they shouldn't, and I know they're all stuck for programming, but...

I personally could do without seeing or hearing Richard Osman for a while.

Yeah same. I used to quite like him when he was just on Pointless.

i did see on twitter that osman's left endemol to go freelance. i think the book was a bigger success than anyone expected - was sold out everywhere i looked (all 3 places...)

he always adds value to any show he's on, apart from that dreadful 'world-cup of things' show he did last christmas.

(i don't ever see house of games, apart from monday's standalone thing, which kind of misses the point of the all-week-with-same-contestants scheduling it gets on bbc2)

re Taskmaster : i wonder if its now at the stage where its not just about the fees that they can afford, but folks actually want to do it cos its good fun.

oh, and yeah, every year this is a certain comedy personality who gets an absolute killing over the festive season and is on every bloody show possible.
couple of years back it was Walliams, the year after that cricket bloke, and this year it was definitely Tom Allen.

Not comedy, but Shirley Ballas is getting a fair old whirl around every show ever at the moment - she's in the one-off Taskmaster and was on both BBC and ITV at the same time the other day.

Yes, that Tom Allen guy seems to have come out of nowhere in the last few months and I'm sick of him already.

oh god he's awful, like he was concocted in some laboratory making smarmy and unfunny hosts

C4's experiment in Taskmaster without comedians doesn't seem to have been particularly successful.

I thought it was really good - I’d happily watch a series with that line-up.

Think I agree with aldo. Nobody seemed to have much imagination except rylan who was trying too hard, if anything. And it felt like Greg was having to do more work than usual to make the chatty bits funny. Might've improved with time though.

Next series:

Lee Mack
Charlotte Ritchie
Jamali Maddix
Mike Wozniak
Sarah Kendall

There'll also be a champion of champions special for sessions 6-10 (last one was 2 episodes iirc)

Lack of imagination is probably what I'm stretching for. It might have been just the choice of tasks not really lending themselves to it but yes, only really Rylan trying to use any imagination or playing with the rules and he didn't really work in isolation with everyone else just doing what the card said.

It started with the prize task, which was boringly literal but possibly not as much as the last series which smacked of 'what I can buy in the all night garage on the way to the studio'.

The prize task has not been great a lot of the time. I think we forget how bad most of them are, because the good ones are so very good.

Last night's was more like a corporate jolly than a proper entertainment programme. The participants all seemed to enjoy themselves hugely, but that didn't translate in the same way as the show usually does. Although, as a Strictly fan, I really, really enjoyed how much fun Shirley Ballas was having. I just enjoyed it in a different way.

Funnily enough I can't disagree with any of the above, but I think the best I enjoy most about the show are the in-between bots rather than the tasks. Last night's lot seemed to slot in to being comfortable with each other / Greg's abuse right from the off and it had me chortling away more than any individual show in the last series (which I suppose means for me it did translate in the way the show usually does when it works best).

Yeah Rylan was the only one I think would make a good regular contestant. Although John Hannah was quite charming and Nicola Derry Girls seemed like a laugh. Didn't like Shirley Ballas but I hate Strictly.

Pulling is back on the iPlayer; both seasons, and the one-off last ep. The whole shebang. Stil one of the funniest BBC shows i've seen.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b007m1vk/pulling?seriesId=b009qkg9

Oh, excellent!

laughtrack or no?

Laughtrack nah, not this dark little beasty.

great, grabbing it now

It’s impressively bleak - I’m only at episode 3 and I feel I’ve been put through the wringer.

yeah, the first episode starts with a bored handjob and gets infinitely more depressing by the minute. it's funny tho!

Comic Strip Presents seems to have finished after showing 3 episodes (5 go mad, bad news, war) about 4 times each (which aren't even the first 3 episodes)

pvr is telling me there are 23 episodes available on All4

in other surprising lacunae of tv presenters news, sandi toksvig seemed to not know what a theremin is on last night's QI.

Watched all of Pulling over the last two weeks, for the first time.

It was funny, but somehow bleaker than deliberately dark comedy because it didn't seem to be aiming for it. All three lead characters are kind of irredeemable human beings, most of the other characters too now I think about it.

It's so good. That first episode!
Can't remember loads about s2, wasn't sure about Dennis Pennis iirc

if you want a general guide as to how dark Pulling is, right around the fourth episode of the first season, there's a sequence where they beat a cat to death with a brick. And it's funny! But it is very much there.

I had to bail - maybe temporarily. Just too bleak for me at the moment, though I can admire it in its own way.

I'm almost annoyed that the new Dead Pixels was shown two at a time because after 4 weeks there are no more to watch. and i thought Rose Matefeo was pretty much perfect in her role (first time I've seen her act)

next taskmaster contestants are up on Wikipedia but i can't remember a single name after having looked last week.

> Panellists for this series will be Charlotte Ritchie, Jamali Maddix, Lee Mack, Mike Wozniak and Sarah Kendall.

um, seems promising but i think Mack might be a bit overbearing.

He's the worst thing about Would I Lie To You (lovely Bob is the best, obviously).

Charlotte Ritchie is lovely - she was campaigning for Labour in the same spot as me on the day of the election. That and Ghosts has secured a place in my heart for her.

Mike Wozniak made me laugh in Man Down, and I've enjoyed some of the videos Maddix has made for Vice. Lee Mack can be overbearing yes, but I admit he makes me laugh sometimes. No idea who Sarah Kendall is.

(a standup from the Newcastle that's north of Sydney, but moved to the UK a year or two after starting comedy, over two decades ago)

australian, probably best known in the uk for that 3-hander sketch show she did with barunka, Beehive (6 episodes in 2008 but fondly remembered here)

xp

i don't know wozniak outside of the character he plays in Man Down

Me either, but that's enough to sell me on him.

Sarah Kendall is a fantastic comic. I'm really looking forward to seeing her do her thing.

He's the worst thing about Would I Lie To You (lovely Bob is the best, obviously).

I used to like him on it, but now he just shouts over everyone all the time. I wonder if he's going a bit deaf.

Saw Kendall do stand-up once and became an immediate fan, she's really great. Had a sitcom at one point based on her life which was sadly rubbish, but it feels like these kinds of things usually are.

These days I'm just thankful if a show doesn't have anyone I know to be an asshole from online in it (I say after having grinded my teeth through the Baddiel season of Taskmaster, not that he wasn't funny in it).

These days I'm just thankful if a show doesn't have anyone I know to be an asshole from online in it

Agreed, fucking twitter. Tony Robinson came on C4 News the other day and I booed the screen. My partner asked what I had against Tony Robinson and I just sounded really pathetic and paranoid explaining.

Yeah, my attempt to explain Baddiel ended in "he's just a dad who needs to log off" and the wife pointed out she knows someone else who might need to log off...

touché

Lol.

Baddiel and Robinson are both total arseholes though...

I mean, Toby Young is a total arsehole. I can imagine listening to Baddiel or Robinson talking on a lot of some subjects and being interested in what they say - TY not so.

I guess I'd listen to Robinson if he was talking about like, Anglo Saxon burial grounds or what it was like to make Blackadder.

I can't imagine being interested in anything David Baddiel does or says.

Nope.