Coronavirus - Impact on live/recorded shows

The Last Leg doesn't 'rely' on audience participation, they could quite easily just do the show without an audience, and acknowledge it.


There's plenty of precidents for entertainment shows without audiences, Kenny Everetts shows he did at Thames are an excellent example. Radio 4 topical comedy The Now Show (which is on the air at the moment) did an audience-free episode on 7/7/2005 when London's transport system was shut down, they just did it in a conventional studio

The Last Leg finishes next week anyhow and they've done episodes without crowds for the Paralympics.

Ant and Dec obviously used to working without a crowd on I'm a Celeb. I do think the show would notably suffer (there is a reason they have a crowd) but they could probably throw together hour-long shows for a couple of weeks and rely on Skype features such as Singalong Live and Happiest Minute, plus switch Win the Ads to a call in comp.


Other than those two shows in primetime I don't think there is anything else live with an audience broadcasting at the moment on the main networks at least. The Voice pre-record most their stages so think they'll have a live semi-final and final in April, though that sort of thing could be postponed if necessary a few weeks.

Nobody laughs harder at Adam Hill's jokes than Adam Hills so having no audience won't really impact The Last Leg. Infact the only show that is going to be affected badly really, should it happen, is Saturday Night Takeaway.

If it did happen, it would be a huge shame for Saturday Night Takeaway. 2 years ago, Ant didn't turn up for half the series. This year, nor will the audience, or the plane.

The toughest thing would be if they have to remain 1m apart throughout the show.

Those with 4:3 CRT screens may struggle to see them if they're not in the 4:3 safe zone.

I don't know if anyone is even aware but Sport Relief is this Friday.

The only other option I suppose is to only allow 10% of the audience into the studio seating area for Ant & Dec/Last Leg/Sport Relief, to allow social distancing to occur. It would look a bit strange but at least the programme would retain 10% of the atmosphere. (% value only a guesstimate)

It has just been announced that it will be likely be announced tomorrow that the UK will enter the delay phase of COVID-19 - meaning large scale gatherings could be cancelled. So will this mean the above ideas will happen?

Arguably his Thames show where crew members were used for laughs were easily his best tv work.

Not sure how a Saturday Night Takeaway could run without an audience.

They could show The Men in Brown, Get out of my Ear / Ant vs Dec, End of the Show Show & do Win the Ads via Skype?

All wrapped up in an hour.

I'd like to announce that tomorrow I'll be announcing that announcements about forthcoming announcements are one of my pet peeves.