Tonightly
Channel 4
The Kevin Bishop Show
Channel 4
SOMETIMES you wonder why you bother. Why did my generation, for example, bother kicking out our parents’ tired old comedians and replacing them with something edgier, only to see it all go down the pan with today’s new breed of humour-free comedy? I’m thinking of the latest offerings from Channel 4: Tonightly and The Kevin Bishop Show. Now that Channel 4 has laid waste to the brains of everyone under 40 with years of exposure to Big Brother, its executives seem to think they need only provide the most feeble of “light ent” programming. And especially if they present it in some kind of “yoof” wrapper, Tonightly sneaking in under the skirts of Channel 4’s Generation Next season, a showcase for young talent.
The wonder is not that Tonightly is being broadcast on a formerly progressive channel such as C4, but that it is being broadcast at all. Having the cheek to call itself “satire”, this limp and laboured attempt at topical humour is embarrassing to watch.
Presenters Jason Manford and Andi Osho would struggle to hold down a job on hospital radio, the former being especially charmless. Not only does he chuckle at his own jokes, he then explains them to his supposedly brain-dead viewers, adding a cheeky chappy wink just to let them know where they are supposed to laugh. No doubt he would lay claim to being kitsch or ironic in a Peter Kay sort of way, but no one is likely to be fooled by that. Expecting this talent-free individual to take potshots at George Bush and Osama Bin Laden is like asking Jordan to front Newsnight. Actually, she would make a better job of it.
The only excuse for a programme like this is that it introduces “young comedy talent”, performing their brief own sketches along the way. Some of these are excruciating – stand-up comic Jack Whitehall’s lazy attempts to humiliate vox pop volunteers, for example.
The best of a dubious bunch is the young comic playing the role of Tory MP Sir Ian Bowler. A cross between Alan B’stard and Francis Urquhart from House of Cards, he is alternately smarmy and hysterical. His rant about the Olympic Games: “We will beat China in 2012 with our terrorist attacks, our atrocious public transport and the conditions our athletes are held in…accommodated in…” was the most amusing thing in the show. I’d say this invented character was quaintly out-of-date, if he didn’t resemble so many members of David Cameron’s inner circle.
Following on from Tonightly came The Kevin Bishop Show, which sounded a lot more promising. That’s because Bishop was the evil genius behind the wonderful Star Stories comedy series, in which he breathed new life into the sport of celebrity bashing. But what was he thinking of when he came up with this desperately poor attempt to conflate Brass Eye and The Fast Show? Lacking the imagination and flair of either, it spits out “channel hopping” soundbites from modern TV, twisting them into painful mini sketches.
So we have Bishop as Ross Kemp: “I’m Ross Kemp, I’ve been in some of the toughest war zones on Earth” or Bishop as comic Harry Hill when still working as a doctor, making light of a patient’s heart disease. Just to be a bit daring, he throws in a few bad taste sketches: Stephen Hawking as a benefits cheat, or the new BBC digital porn channel broadcasts “Snatch of the Day”.
Oh, very funny Kevin. Getting cash-strapped young actresses to show us their (pixilated) front bottoms. Very dangerous comedy, that. I say back to the drawing board and next time come up with a decent script.
Young comedy whippersnappers these days, eh? They don’t know they’re born.
Helen Chappell
About The Author
You’re wrong about everything . . . apart from Tonightly generally being very bad, which I think is unanimous across the country.
Jack Whitehall was the best of the sketch artists on Tonightly, while the Sir Ian Bowler character was one of the worst.
Also, the Kevin Bishop show is a breath of fresh air because it has more laughs per half hour than most other current comedy shows put together.