SW
Well, Angus was just doing his standard HIGNFY shtick with funny photos and one-liners and so on, all delivered beautifully of course but not that much different to what he was doing the rest of the year. The best one of them all was the last one in 2000 because it wasn't the usual mix of tired gags and stand-ups but a brilliantly edited compilation of telly moments of the year...
Clive James did make a bit of a comeback to that kind of thing on ITV in 1999 with his Night Of A Thousand Years, the last thing he did for them before he "retired". Andrew Collins talks in one of his books about being a writer on that show alongside Stuart Maconie, and said Clive, though fantastic, was getting a bit out of touch with pop culture, he talks about a sequence about Villain Of The Millennium where Collins and Maconie suggested using Martin Kemp as a guest because he was dead famous and popular, but Clive had never heard of him, so they got Christopher Lee instead.
The worst New Year's Eve show was in 2001 when Jonathan Ross did It's Your New Year's Eve Party...
http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/f14edc31348d4aeb8f72aa9f93b3950b
A terrible line-up of BBC standbys (including Neil Morrissey) with no atmosphere whatsoever, just plugging their various shows, while Vic and Bob (who I love dearly) did one of their ill-advised bits where they turn up with no material and just busk it (cf every Comic Relief) and all the musical guests did ballads. And it was also blatantly pre-recorded, I know they all are, but they made no effort whatsoever. Diabolical, it was.
I dunno about Frankie Boyle being constrained or so controversial. If he was so bad he wouldn't be on television at all like Jerry Sadowitz. When he was on Mock the Week I never felt that he was doing much that all the other comedians were doing. The difference was that he was delivering them in a po-faced style which made it look like he meant it, and was accompanied by all the other guests going "Oh God, Frankie, I can't believe you said that", when they were all doing the same kind of stuff but smiling and mugging at the camera. He was never broadcasting live either so all his material would have been cleared by several people.
But it reminds me of an interview with Alexei Sayle where he was asked if he found it hard to change his famously aggressive stand-up style to TV and he said "I'm a professional entertainer, not an animal", and that he simply tailored the act for the setting. I also remember Stewart Lee saying he didn't care if he was asked not to do a particular joke or routine on TV, because he could do it live instead. He said he found it a bit hard to have sympathy with comedians who complained they couldn't say this or that on TV because TV gave them the money and profile to do live shows where they could say what they wanted.
I also remember Lee saying that "not all comedy benefits from being presented like The Rolling Stones", in that if you have a misanthropic and aggressive style, it doesn't work in a setting like Live At The Appalling where you have all the flashing lights and you're in a posh suit and it's all about how spectacular it is because you end up looking too powerful and like a bully. Which I would agree with.
Actually it reminds me a bit of people slagging off Charlie for "selling out" by having a glamorous wife and being nice. Most of it is a character, on Screenwipe and Newswipe they always left in bits where he corpsed or cocked things up. He's not really a psychopath or anything. It's like expecting Al Murray to actually run a pub.
Oh yes. He was tolerable at it (and at least you can see the logic compared to Neil Morrisey) though nowhere near as charming as Clive James.
Well, Angus was just doing his standard HIGNFY shtick with funny photos and one-liners and so on, all delivered beautifully of course but not that much different to what he was doing the rest of the year. The best one of them all was the last one in 2000 because it wasn't the usual mix of tired gags and stand-ups but a brilliantly edited compilation of telly moments of the year...
Clive James did make a bit of a comeback to that kind of thing on ITV in 1999 with his Night Of A Thousand Years, the last thing he did for them before he "retired". Andrew Collins talks in one of his books about being a writer on that show alongside Stuart Maconie, and said Clive, though fantastic, was getting a bit out of touch with pop culture, he talks about a sequence about Villain Of The Millennium where Collins and Maconie suggested using Martin Kemp as a guest because he was dead famous and popular, but Clive had never heard of him, so they got Christopher Lee instead.
The worst New Year's Eve show was in 2001 when Jonathan Ross did It's Your New Year's Eve Party...
http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/f14edc31348d4aeb8f72aa9f93b3950b
A terrible line-up of BBC standbys (including Neil Morrissey) with no atmosphere whatsoever, just plugging their various shows, while Vic and Bob (who I love dearly) did one of their ill-advised bits where they turn up with no material and just busk it (cf every Comic Relief) and all the musical guests did ballads. And it was also blatantly pre-recorded, I know they all are, but they made no effort whatsoever. Diabolical, it was.
Given his previous run-ins with the BBC, it's not a great substitute given he's visibly gimped and seems like he can't say what he really wants to say without being censored. Most of the talking seems to come from the guests with Frankie chiming in with a one liner.
I dunno about Frankie Boyle being constrained or so controversial. If he was so bad he wouldn't be on television at all like Jerry Sadowitz. When he was on Mock the Week I never felt that he was doing much that all the other comedians were doing. The difference was that he was delivering them in a po-faced style which made it look like he meant it, and was accompanied by all the other guests going "Oh God, Frankie, I can't believe you said that", when they were all doing the same kind of stuff but smiling and mugging at the camera. He was never broadcasting live either so all his material would have been cleared by several people.
But it reminds me of an interview with Alexei Sayle where he was asked if he found it hard to change his famously aggressive stand-up style to TV and he said "I'm a professional entertainer, not an animal", and that he simply tailored the act for the setting. I also remember Stewart Lee saying he didn't care if he was asked not to do a particular joke or routine on TV, because he could do it live instead. He said he found it a bit hard to have sympathy with comedians who complained they couldn't say this or that on TV because TV gave them the money and profile to do live shows where they could say what they wanted.
I also remember Lee saying that "not all comedy benefits from being presented like The Rolling Stones", in that if you have a misanthropic and aggressive style, it doesn't work in a setting like Live At The Appalling where you have all the flashing lights and you're in a posh suit and it's all about how spectacular it is because you end up looking too powerful and like a bully. Which I would agree with.
Actually it reminds me a bit of people slagging off Charlie for "selling out" by having a glamorous wife and being nice. Most of it is a character, on Screenwipe and Newswipe they always left in bits where he corpsed or cocked things up. He's not really a psychopath or anything. It's like expecting Al Murray to actually run a pub.