And Danny Bhoy as well, oh goody. Where's my gun?
The Saturday Live revival has been tried, there's no need for it. New comics get enough exposure in the media these days, it's not like the 80s, you don't need a show like it anymore.
What I mean is, in 1988 FNL was the only slot for people like Harry Enfield or Paul Merton to do non-trad stand-up. They couldn't get slots on Wogan or Des O'Connor or whatever. Nowadays there are breaks and there are shows for them, we don't need another.
Why not make it more like SL was originally conceived, as more of a revue-type package, with sketches in it.
>What I mean is, in 1988 FNL was the only slot for people like Harry Enfield or Paul Merton to do non-trad stand-up. They couldn't get slots on Wogan or Des O'Connor or whatever. Nowadays there are breaks and there are shows for them, we don't need another.
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>Why not make it more like SL was originally conceived, as more of a revue-type package, with sketches in it.
Quite agree. At the risk of sounding dreadfully negative, I'm getting quite weary of stand-up comedy anyway. The Fry & Laurie stuff on Saturday Live was masterly, Dangerous Brothers material fun, and Docherty & Hunter on FNL very adventurous. Trouble is, comedy wasn't really a moneyspinner back then and more people took risks - the LWT remake of Saturday Live in 96 was one of the biggest flops (commercially and artistically in living memory). Just because you've got Lee Hurst-from-They-Think-It's-All-Over in it doesn't mean anyone's going to actually find it funny.
Why not just give the show to Bill Bailey and Lee & Herring?
There you go. Perfect.
Why not do it live from a comedy club, with no editing whatsoever?
That really would be dangerous...
>Just because you've got Lee Hurst-from-They-Think-It's-All-Over in it doesn't mean anyone's going to actually find it funny.
Remember the last show, where Hurst did an opening monologue at LWT and then did a terrible boxer routine in the back of a car, only to be spewed out into a comedy club full of pavlovian, sycophantic drunks? Y'know, because he's real, man.
'Saturday Live'(1996) was dreadful, but Harry Hill and Simon Munnery's bits were terrific. The worst sin was that it gave the world Junior Simpson.
Junior Simpson was the warm up at the recording of Time Gentlemen Please a few weeks ago and it was embarassing to watch. He ran out of things to say within 10 or 20 minutes, and ended up just making noises or trying to have conversations with the audience.
Al kept coming forward to do stuff for the audience between takes, which was head and shoulders above Junior Simpson.
>Broadcast Magazine reports today that C4 plans to replace TFI Friday with a new show reminiscent of Saturday/Friday Night Live, "using several comics from the Avalon stable"...
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That's one show that has been proposed for the slot, but it's not the only one. trust me.
I'd like to see TFI Not Chris Evans, with Lee and Herring reviving the TMWRNJ format with sketches contributed by other people. Live at 6.30 or whatever and repeated at 11ish. And an interview with Rowland Rivron.