What could have been the show of a generation has become an embarrassing series of missteps and misjudgments. With the penultimate episode going out this Thursday, here are ten things wrong with the 10 O’ Clock Live show. At least they didn’t use the 24-hour clock; we could have been here all day.
1. The Audience
The audience of any show is difficult to judge. Do you want a producer running up and down squeezing every last bit of clapping and screaming out of already cracked hands and tired voices? Would we prefer a slow burn, a pantomime crescendo or a blissful calm?
For the 10 O’ Clock Live show, it looks like they have trawled through every University in London’s Art Departments, plied them full of drink and then shoved on some obviously hateful right winger (they’re right-wing so we must hate them, we must) for them to boo at in an increasingly irritating manner.
Ditch the audience or put gags over their mouths. We came for the comedy, not for yelping students.
2. The Earnestness
When Chris Morris first turned his Brass Eye on the audience, we were riveted. Straight faced, not a blink of the eyebrow and a mouth that barely moved, Morris basically gave a lecture each week on how to present satire.
With the 10 O’ Clock live show we get the barely watchable scene of Charlie Brooker pandering desperately to an audience he regularly berates in his columns, Jimmy Carr face mugging as another joke falls flat, Lauren Laverne having a good crack at making me like big, evil corporations and David Mitchell trying to bring a politician down by playing to the crowd.
Get rid of the earnestness and get some confidence about what you’re saying. If sometimes the viewer doesn't like it, all the better.
3. The Interviews
David Mitchell is the ‘intellectual’ of the show and as such is given the honour of giving the main interviews. Now, I quite like David Mitchell. Seemingly identical to his Peep Show character, David is a pleasant chap with an obvious intelligence. It is disappointing then that he hasn’t grabbed the fundamental rules of a good interview though. The main one is to not overreach too soon, especially on a comedy show. Satire is as much about letting the other guy destroying himself. Using your best joke in your opening salvo is a rookie error, one that he makes consistently.
Remember David, they might even try to be funny; that’s when you have them.
4. It’s too long
Half an hour is the length of most comedy shows for a reason. It gives a short, sharp bite of compact nonsense (hopefully) coated in something meaningful. The 10 O’ Clock show drifts from one desperately padded segment to another. There is a horrible sense that they are filling time. I’ve always wanted to see the cutting room floor in the aforementioned Chris Morris’s study; I’m just hoping the 10 O’ Clock studio has a big enough fireplace.
Cut out the waffle, reduce the interviews and start making a point.
5. It doesn’t know what it is
Who remembers the original excitement when we saw the advertisements around Christmas with this great line-up of comedians? Many of us thought this would be our generations ‘Not the Nine O’ Clock News’, something that could pierce a hole not only in the politics of the day, but the media’s coverage of it.
I literally punched the air when I saw Charlie Brooker’s grim face staring out at me. This is a man who’s latest show ‘How TV Ruined Your Life’ is a work of sartorial greatness, a culmination of years of work on ScreenWipe and Newswipe. Now I’m reduced to praying that he won’t fluff another line because he’s being forced to do it live.
We wanted something great Channel 4; you fucked it up by trying to appeal to students who still paint their walls black à la Adrian Mole. The world has moved on, so should you.
6. Being Live
Why live? Apart from the novelty factor, there's little reason for this show to be live. It causes huge problems for both the presenters and the material they have to work with. It means there is a sense of urgency in the presentation style that no satire show should have.
The only part of the show that makes any relevance to this is the tomorrow newspaper section, often cut short anyway due to time restraints. Satire doesn’t need to be at the front of the field, as long as it figures out a way to cheat it can canter along until the last fence.
7. Lauren Laverne
Oh, Lauren. Is there a more confident, funny and capable presenter on television today? Reduced to making wishy-washy, left-wing propaganda speeches every week to an already converted audience is a real waste of talent and the biggest indication that the producers have no clue what they want from the show.
Lauren is the main presenter, the host. It is her job to keep the other presenters in check, the audience under wraps and also give the viewer a sense of calm in the storm that is the rest of the show.
Best comedy television presenter of the last 20 years? I’d give a nod to Angus Deyton, although I’m sure there are better. He kept the surrealist wit of Paul Merton and the satirical eye of Ian Hislop ticking over for the best part of a decade, never allowing them to take over the performance. The lunatics cannot take over the asylum.
8. Jimmy Carr’s ‘Sketches’
That Berlusconi one was funny though, wasn’t it? No, Jimmy, it wasn’t. Neither was the riot police one, or the, or the ….
The show regularly uses the fact that it’s live to excuse mistakes, almost tacitly admitting that it isn’t funny. But there is no excuse for these ham-fisted sketches where Jimmy Carr, a pretty decent comedian, comes out and ‘satirises’ one of weeks main events. This is the point, they have a week to prepare and Jimmy Carr still comes out and plays the comedy Italian with the funny accent and a penchant for young girls. Jim Davidson would be proud, but no-one else is laughing.
9. The round table discussions
Painful to watch, the round table discussions between the four presenters are only useful in trying to spot the scripted bits. Comedians trying to make each other laugh is rarely funny, they work best as soloists. It’s time to ditch the round table and put someone in charge. After all, even King Arthur was killed by Lancelot.
10. It’s too left-wing
Yes, yes, Conservatives are bad, Labour are worse and the Liberal Democrats are the punch line. We get it. Stop shoving this crap down our throats and start looking to genuinely challenge the system and institutions around you. If you don’t want to do that then call it what it is, a party political broadcast for pretentious assholes.
I watch Fox News for a laugh, pity I can’t say the same for 10 O’ Clock Live.