Gary Barlow’s X Factor Video Diary 2
October 3, 2011 Leave a Comment
Stuff I Watched: Show Me The Funny – Final
September 1, 2011 Leave a Comment
It’s been a full week since the live final of not-very-popular reality TV show Show Me The Funny. Surely this is the perfect time for me to write about it.
Obviously, its not the perfect time, but I feel compelled to finish what I started. Since the show aired, I’ve been on holiday and I didn’t make any notes, so this will be a) from memory and b) half-hearted. Hey, being a bit vague is my schtick, so we are where we are.
The final of the stand up competition was broadcast live from the Hammersmith Apollo, with 3000 people in attendance. Each of the acts was given a 5-minute spot, which was – shock, horror – shown in full. The running order was chosen by the producers: Tiff, Dan then Pat.
Before each set, we got a final “task” (shown on VT), with each act paired up with a mentor; Tiff with Bob Mortimer, Dan with Ross Noble and Pat with Johnny Vegas. In fairness, the tasks were vaguely related to improving the perceived weaknesses with each comic, and they were at least entertaining if not actually useful.
Erm, well, they all did pretty well really and Pat, unsurprisingly, won. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the show was that Jason Manford made several jokes about how few people were watching. Naughty.
And that’s that. I told you it was going to be half-hearted.
Stuff I Watched: Show Me The Funny – Week 6
August 22, 2011 Leave a Comment
Blackpool! Need I say more? Oh, ok.
The five remaining comics had to play in Blackpool. Blackpool. Home of pissed up Glaswegians. Only three would make it through to the live final. The other two wouldn’t.
For the first time in the series we got to actually hear something about the acts and how they were feeling, instead of focusing on meaningless tasks. We were then straight into the show. There was no meaningless task at all. It begged the question why they would make the format change at such a late stage? Each performer had a 10 minute set in front of a Blackpool crowd and guest judges Cannon and Ball. Yes, THE Cannon and Ball. Rock on, Tommy.
This week we actually got to see much more of the sets – another last minute, positive format change. I wonder if the programme makers realised that we were five weeks in and still didn’t know what the comedians’ acts were actually all about. That’s not a great place to be when you’re going to try and flog a DVD and tour on the back of the series.
The acts all seemed to do relatively well on the night, which made for a refreshing change.
So to the judging. Pat went through and Ellie went home. I think experience was the deciding factor for both comedians. Dan went though next, before Tiff secured the final spot.
Such is the nature of the programme that I have no idea who will win. Next stop is the live final at the Hammersmith Apollo. I’ll be there. I’ll be intrigued. See you Thursday.
Stuff I Watched: Show Me The Funny – Week 5
August 21, 2011 Leave a Comment
I’m almost a full week behind with this, but I’m going to plough on out of a misguided sense of commitment.
The remaining six comics travelled to a rugby club to discover who their mystery audience would be this week. It was an audience of rugby players and fans. Who would have guessed?
The contestants were split into three teams and tasked with running a night of entertainment in a pub. The winners would win the chance to assign a 10-minute spot for two acts at the show. Tiff and Pat won the challenge and decided to take the 10 spots for themselves.
Alfie opened the gig after closing last week, and being singled out for praise. Inevitably, he died on his arse. Stuart, who struggled last week, was on next and equally inevitably stormed it. Such is the world of stand up comedy.
The rest did pretty well other than “local boy” Dan who seemed to think he’d do well because of he was Welsh (they were in Wales), but then struggled to deal with hecklers.
Johnny Vegas was the guest judge and spoke a lot of sense. Stuart was singled out for praise. Pat was picked up on for not performing material and just messing around on stage (which is clearly what his act is). Johnny Vegas told him that he “wasn’t performing stand up”, which must have been pretty hard to take for a professional comedian.
In the end, they sent Alfie home. You know what they say, “you’re only as good as your last gig.”
Stuff I Watched: Show Me The Funny – Week 4
August 9, 2011 Leave a Comment
It’s Show Me The Funny time again. Hooray!
I’m a bit tired tonight, so forgive me if this post is a little half-hearted. Please don’t take it as any reflection on the show. OK, you can probably take it as a bit of a reflection on the show, but not entirely.
This week, the remaining comics have to produce a hospital radio show, followed by the standard 5-minute set, unsurprisingly in front of some hospital staff.
So, let’s talk about the preamble\task section. It’s all fairly bland, other than the seemingly inevitable self-destruction of Rudi who didn’t seem to have been able to recover from last week’s self imposed death.
“Writing day,” announced Jason Manford. You may remember that last week this prompted me to get out my stopwatch. Well, don’t worry, the same happened this week too. The ‘writing day’ section lasted just 52 seconds, which is 8 seconds shorter than last week. Disappointing.
Rudi and Stuart surprisingly won the task (they did the ‘best’ radio show) and so picked the running order, which they couldn’t agree on. Stuart wanted to pick as if it was a normal gig (strongest acts last); Rudi wanted to pick tactically. Manford stepped in and the order was chosen on the flip of a coin. Rudi’s cynical selection won. Would this pay off for him? (I don’t know because I’m writing this as I watch it and I haven’t seen the “result” yet)
Stuart started and struggled a bit. Rudi went second and the judges looked decidedly unimpressed. Their decision to go first and second seemed to have been a mistake. Obviously.
This week’s guest judge was Jo Brand, presumably because she used to be a nurse. Alfie was chosen to see the judges because he had done so well. Ellie, Stuart and Rudi were in for the criticism. Ellie was criticised for being attractive and girly, which is surely her USP as a comedian. Rudi and Stuart got slated. Rudi got kicked out.
See you next week! (Yes, I know it’s an abrupt end, but I’m sleepy. Bye x)
Stuff I Watched: Show Me The Funny – Week 3
August 3, 2011 Leave a Comment
Having not been in when this screened on Monday night, it might have been the perfect excuse to give it a miss, but thanks to Sky Plus and a misguided sense of completing what I started, it’s time for this week’s recap of Show Me The Funny.
This episode’s gimmick audience were school kids and the task involved the comics being split into teams to give lessons to the kids. It was probably the strongest challenge to date: performing to kids would really force them to tailor their material and not fall back on old stuff, and preparing the lessons at least required some creativity.
Since I was semi-interested in this week’s task, I guess I paid more attention and this highlighted one of the main flaws in the format: the one hour running time just isn’t long enough. There’s too much to cram in, so it has to rattle along at such a rate of knots that you don’t actually get to focus on anything and so it all becomes a bit meaningless. Anyway, just so I don’t sound completely negative, the task part was at least mildly entertaining this week. It still didn’t seem to relate too much to comedy, but you can’t have everything.
“It’s writing day,” announced Jason Manford. As an aspiring comic, my ears pricked up as this could be the most interesting and useful section. It’s lasted exactly a minute. I know this because I timed it. What are you going to learn in a minute? (Answer: not a lot)
Ross Noble was the guest judge. He had some interesting points to make in the 15 second talking head that he was allotted.
The performance section was really interesting, in that pretty much all the acts struggled. The only one that seemed to win the crowd over was Patrick Monaghan, who essentially just spat water over the kids. It made them laugh, but really? Rudi was the act who struggled most, which was strange given that he was the most experienced. He started by just listing TV shows (“Hey, who likes X Factor?”), then seemed to recover before completely imploding – he visibly talked himself into dying. It was quite an eye opener given how experienced he is.
Tiff and Pat were called back to the judges for feedback. It’s didn’t come across as the “best two” this week as it wasn’t all positive, but it was at least constructive. Interestingly, Pat was praised for getting through his material, instead of the larking around that he has done in previous weeks. This was strange given that we basically just saw him spitting water pretending to be a whale. I guess it just highlights how stuff can be edited together to give the impression that the producers want to give. We’re still only seeing 60-90 seconds of each 5 minute set, so it would be easy to pick and choose from these to tell whichever story they want to.
The “bottom two” were Rudi and Cole. Ross Noble gave Rudi what seemed like heartfelt advice, basically saying that he’s really got to push himself if he’s going to get out of the rut he’s in. It’s moments like this that give a glimmer of what the show could be. Kate Copstick said that Cole was shit. She literally said he was shit. Under those circumstances it was no surprise that he was the one that went.
Strangely, by the end of the episode, I found myself drawn into it much more than I thought I would. I certainly didn’t see that happening.
Stuff I Watched: Show Me The Funny – Week 2
July 26, 2011 2 Comments
It was with some trepidation that I went into the second episode of Show Me The Funny – I wanted it to be so much better than last week but had little faith that it would be. On the plus side, the guest judge this week was Bob Mortimer, so it couldn’t be all bad.
The theme this time around was “perform for some soliders”. It begged the question why they didn’t get squaddie’s favourite Jim Davidson as the guest judge. Hmmm, maybe that question answered itself. The gimmick was that the comics were split into teams of three and the “winning” team – those who most impressed the soldiers at a series of army training tasks – got to choose the running order of the gig. I forgot to mention this last week as the justification for performing the tasks.
The tasks were utterly pointless and it just seemed like they were taking part in another reality show. What relevance did any of it have to the comedy? I guess that if they managed to get some material from the experience, you could sort of see the point, but we see so little of the actual stand up that it’s hard to judge.
To be honest, I fast forwarded through some of it because I want to learn about creating comedy not running around in a field. There was brief section about writing the week’s material but this lasted for about 30 seconds for all 9 acts. Really disappointing.
They showed very little of the actual stand up sets again – around 90 seconds maximum for any comedian. For some acts – like least-experienced comic Ellie Taylor – we got to see one or two lines, so it’s really difficult to judge how they really did. Anyway, the “bottom two” were Prince Abdi – who did another terrible accent and a baffling anecdote - and Cole Parker- who has pissed off some of the soldiers and so was barracked from the onset (pun intended). The two chosen for praise Dan Mitchell – who did manage to use the week’s experiences as the basis for his set – and Rudi Lickwood – who actually got criticised for laziness in his praise (?).
Prince Abdi was, unsurprisingly, voted off. Although, I say unsurprisingly when we perhaps didn’t see enough of the others to really judge. It’s also noticeable that I don’t feel like I know anything about any of the acts yet, which is a failing of any reality TV format.
I’ll probably stick with it and hope that we get to see much more comedy as the contestants thin out.
Related articles
- Stuff I Watched: Show Me The Funny – Week 1 (poursomegravyonme.co.uk)
- Show Me the Funny – and the unfunny (guardian.co.uk)
Stuff I Watched: Show Me The Funny – Week 1
July 19, 2011 3 Comments
So, as an aspiring comedian, it’s no surprise that I watched Show Me The Funny – a reality show about competing stand-up comedians – despite it being on entertainment-vacuum ITV1, a channel that seems to be the show’s least likely home. Luckily, ITV did their best to make a hash of the show, so my faith in their ineptitude was restored.
I didn’t know anything about the show beforehand other than its basic premise and that Jason Manford was the host, so I was surprised to find out that the winner would get £100,000, a “nationwide tour” and a DVD release before Christmas. It’s certainly an impressive prize, but seems an awful lot of pressure for the winner to live up to.
I’m not sure quite how they chose the contestants. They ranged from seasoned pros like Rudi Lickwood and Patrick Monahan – both well-established comics from the circuit – to newcomer (and “ex-model”) Ellie Taylor, who’s only been going for 18-months. On the face of it, this seems like a hairdressing contest that pitted a 17-year old apprentice against Vidal Sassoon.
The format is that every week each comic will perform a 5-minute set of new material, which is tailored towards the week’s “tough audience” (this week a group of scouse women). They are then judged by a panel – Alan Davies, Kate Copstick and a guest (this week Jimmy Tarbuck) – and one is voted off.
So, was it any good? I guess you have to judge it on two levels: did I learn anything about comedy and did it work as a reality show?
The reality show aspect was a bit of a mess. They had the contestants completing “tasks” – finding someone called Michelle, arranging a blind date, working in a hairdresser’s and other traditional scouse activities – which were completely irrelevant. The scant justification for the tasks is that it’s supposed to generate material – and some of the acts managed to do this – but it felt completely tacked on to make it more like The Apprentice.
The other major problem is that not enough time was spent watching the routines. We probably saw 60-90 seconds of each, and this was chopped up to ruin any flow. A comedy set has a structure and it’s important to see all of it to know how each comedian really did. Perhaps this will change in subsequent weeks. A couple of the acts did so badly that it would have been painful to endure the full five minutes. It was interesting to see comedians do badly on TV and should hopefully demonstrate how difficult a task it is. I hope this so that people stop asking to come and see my gigs expecting me to be funny.
For me, it would have been much more satisfying as a programme if we’d seen all of the performances and if, instead of the “tasks”, we’d spent some time seeing how the acts developed their material.
I obviously asked myself how I’d do on the show. Apart from the fact that I’d be completely out of my depth, it struck me that because they’re asking to generate material in a specific way, it only really lends itself to observational-type comedians. In essence, I’d be completely boned. I suppose it’s an understandable approach as they need their winner to appeal to as mainstream an audience as possible.
And so to the result. Unsurprisingly it was a couple of the least experienced acts that struggled most – although not the seemingly sacrificial lamb Ellie who probably tailored her material to the audience most successfully. You wonder if they picked some inexperienced acts on purpose, to make it more “dramatic”. I’m struggling otherwise to think of a reason why there is such a disparity in experience. The judges picked 4 acts to give feedback to – 2 good, 2 bad – and it was really obvious which was which. The two up for the chop were Prince Abdi and Ignacio Lopez. Ignacio went home with all 3 votes, despite the judges seemingly agreeing that Prince was worse on the night. The judges’ feedback was among the most interesting parts of the show, and even this seemed cut short. Poor Jason Manford seemed totally redundant.
Anyway, I seem like I’m being really harsh on it, but that’s probably because I wanted it to be really good. It was enjoyable enough, and I’ll stick with it for now. Hopefully they’ll be able to grow into the format as the acts start to thin out.
If you take anything away from the programme it should be this: anyone who even tries stand up is totally amazing.
Stuff I Watched: Small(ville) Review
June 13, 2011 2 Comments
Image by Joelk75 via Flickr
I’m hardly watching any telly at the moment, largely because – shock, horror – I have a life. I’m making the most of the whole “having a life” scenario while it lasts, so you’ll have to make do with one paltry review.
Smallville: E4 (Recorded 7th June, Watched 7th June)
Finally we get to see the uneagerly awaited tenth and final season of Smallville. It’s been a long time coming, some - including me – might say that it was unnecessarily long. E4 finished screening season 9 before season 10 began to air in the US, so why have we had to wait for the series to conclude before it has been shown over here?
Well, the prolonged absence meant I had absolutely no clue what was going on. OK, I had a bit of a clue, but would it have been too much trouble to cobble a “previously on…” feature together?
It’s undoubtedly the most annoying programme that I continue to watch and I’d be tempted to give up if the end wasn’t in sight. Oh, they do so many, many things badly. This episode’s examples include: the Lex clones who looked nothing like him, several crap resurrections (death is truly meaningless in Smallville), Lois having made a Superman suit (why? how?), the return of Jonathan Kent (??), most of the acting, Oliver in baby oil being tortured by someone for some unknown reason and Chloe being swapped for Oliver in a hood. I could go on, it was virtually unwatchable.
The best thing about the show remains Erica Durance as Lois Lane, and, no, not just because she exceedingly hot. She is so much better than everybody else in this that she’s being done a disservice. Plus, you know, she’s really hot.
Anyway, it might be rubbish, but I’ve read that Blue Beetle and Booster Gold make an appearance later in the season, so there’s no way that the 13-year old me will let me stop watching.
Stuff I Watched: Who is a Machine?
June 7, 2011 2 Comments
Image via Wikipedia
Doctor Who: BBC One\HD (Recorded 4th June, Watched 4th June)
I love Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who and this series has been great, so far, so the expectations were literally sky-high for the “mid-season finale” (if you can actually have such a thing). Inevitably, it didn’t quite live up to those literal sky-high expectations, but it gave it a good go. All the pre-title stuff with Rory the last centurion (not to be confused with Denver the Last Dinosaur) was great – despite them having Amy do the whole “sounds like she’s talking about The Doctor, but actually talking about Rory” thing again.
The episode was a rollicking ride, so to speak, despite a lack of any real plot and a few seeming inconsistencies. The big reveal\cliffhanger was so well signposted – even before the “Melody Pond” revelation – that they only way it could have been shocking is if River wasn’t Amy and Rory’s sprog. I didn’t quite understand where the Doctor raced off to, so at least that was intriguing. Any lingering doubts about the episode soon evaporated when I saw that the series would recommence with “Let’s Kill Hitler”. That’s how you tease an audience.
What was, perhaps, most striking moment of the episode was the blatant cunnilingus joke between the Lizard woman and her Victorian maid lesbian lover (yes, really). Part of me is proud to live in a country where this could crop up in Saturday tea-time family entertainment. The other part of me was horrified.
All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grave: BBC 2 (R 6th June, W 6th June)
Adam Curtis’s spellbinding series drew to a close last night, with an exploration of…errr… I think it was something to do with humans being seen as machines juxtaposed against the horrors in Rwanda. It was something like that.
My confusion is not purely down to the complex nature of the ideas presented. I currently have the attention span of a teenager, primarily caused by my iPad addiction. I watched the first half of this episode on the telly, but flicked over half way through to watch it on iPlayer on the aforementioned iPad. As I tried to find where I was up to, I realised that I didn’t at all recognise the narration that happened just before the point I was up to. I believed I had been paying relatively close attention, so I’m obviously not as good at multi-tasking as I thought.
The problems caused by my complete absorption in the electronic device seemed incredibly apt considering what I was (half-)watching. Probably. Like I said, it was pretty hard to understand.
Related articles
- Stuff I Watched: Expendable Machines (poursomegravyonme.co.uk)
- Stuff I Watched: Game of Bores (poursomegravyonme.co.uk)
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