They've been warmed up too much, or the crowd mics are too loud, or something. But the audience is making this rather irritating to watch.
I was just thinking the same. They should applaud politely and maybe even laugh occasionally, but anyone cheering should be asked to leave during the next commercial break.
I'm not keen on the noisy audience and Lauren Laverne, but so far it's not too bad, at least Channel 4 are giving this sometime to run and develop, so I'll definitely watch it again. David Mitchell's rant on Jeremy Hunt was funny...
"Get the pizzas, we're having a North West Tonight marathon!"
Good stuff tonight - I thought the four worked together very well and Lauren plays an important role in kind of being master of ceremonies, allowing the others to shine when they come together as a four. And great to have some intelligent comedy mixed in with debates most of it's viewers would never watch were they on C4 News or Newsnight etc.
They'll be a few crinkles to iron out over the weeks for sure (World News Now for starters!), but not bad at all and nothing really like it elsewhere on TV at the moment, unlike the endless comedy panel shows.
As predicted Laverne was the weakest link, World News now?!
Brooker and David Mitchell were the clear bright sparks of the show, with Mitchell clearly knowing his stuff when interviewing the guests. Did find it a bit boring though, satire and serious debate doesn't mix too well. The show as great promise though, I look forward to it developing into potentially an excellent show.
Also agree about the set, what happened to the set from the trailer? I guess that was custom made for the ad, but it just looked like they'd merged Chris Moyles Quiz Night with 8 Out of 10 cats, bloody awful!
It was fairly obvious that the set in the trailer wasn't going to be the one for the programme, there was hardly anything to it. The set was ok I thought and quite flexible, the walking between areas by the presenters worked well and seemed quite natural.
As for the programme, it was a good start. I agree that the audience was too loud and whoopey especially at the start but it improved. I thought the World news sketch wasn't too bad, as a spoof of a dumbed down American style news bulletin it worked... it just needed more jokes.
Jimmy Carr seemed a little wooden on the Tunisia sketch (not his thing) but was good at the interview section. That did remind me of the sort of interview that Stephen Colbert does, although without the characterisation. I think I would have preferred Jimmy to play more of a Colbert-style devils advocate/idiot role
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 20 January 2011 11:54pm
Jimmy Carr's little... I don't know, smug shrugs?... after every joke were very annoying. I had to switch off and try again later. I am well aware that this is one of his 'things' and am actually a bit of a fan of his... but it's terribly annoying and horribly smug when he's doing this kind of straight-to-camera stuff.
Was a lot smoother this week I thought, hopefully building some momentum now. Shame they still haven't the faintest idea of what to do with Lauren though - her serco "rant" was just bizarre. Not that it wasn't without merit in terms of content, it was just seemed to be completely different in tone to the rest of the show - bar shoehorning in the rather lame Nick Clegg criticism at the end. It didn't seem like she completely did believe it, rather someone else wrote it for her and said "here, do this". Of course she may well be entirely passionate about the subject, but for me it didn't come across.
I thought it was better last night aswell, far less whooping from the audience too which made it more watchable, but again Mitchell and Brooker stood out too, plus Jimmy Carr was better this week, loved the 'webuyanyplane.com' bit.
