Generation Game to be brought back with Mel and Sue

Anyone who has been off TV for a while and is then offered a daytime TV show has to avoid being snobbish about it. Plenty of daytime TV shows have decent production values, have a huge audience and, if you're someone who's been out of fashion for a bit, probably an older, more receptive audience willing to give you a go. You don't just walk back on to Saturday night prime-time, you have to work your way back. If you're successful enough then it doesn't matter how snobbish people are, the numbers will make the point (see Mrs Brown's Boys).

Michael Barrymore. Can work with a script or ignore it when appropriate. Can do smaltz or be cutting if appropriate. Can work an audience like few others can including children and adults. Is a seasoned performer rather than a presenter. Would be a national, sensational return to television. He's not my cup of tea though I have to say.

I always thought his natural home would be making the switch to the beeb to host the Gen Game! He has that repore with gameshow contestants like Larry Grayson had.

Unfortunately I think, in the risk-averse NuBBC I don't think Barrymore would get a look in, despite being more than up to the job I'm sure.

The BBC under Lord Hall-Hall would be nervous of employing someone with an (albeit unrelated) history which has sadly (and wrongly IMO) followed Barrymore's career for the past 20+ Years.

Lately it seems if there might even be a sniff of negative publicity which might be attracted to the Beeb from the likes of the Daily Fail & The Scum, the BBC try to second guess, taking the safest option.

The problem lies in my view with those in charge not having the Kahunas to be anywhere near bold enough with their talent choices and/or programming decisions.

If you'd like to witness a similar half-baked approach & the Beeb's ruination of a music-based show (my advice would be not to), look no further than...

Sounds Like Friday Night
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09cnb5g

Oddly enough and quite appropriately, when the title's entered into a well-known search engine, the following genre is displayed....

Comedy series (and not for the right reasons)

I'm sure a few who post here will remember 'the Monacled Mutineer', where the Beeb faced down both the Mail and the Government, but those days within the Beeb seem to be long gone & the 'W1A' mentality of constant damage limitation & capitulation now seems to apply, much to the detriment of actual programming.

Unless the Beeb get past this bunker mentality (and actually listen to viewer opinion on what the public want), I feel more examples of the kind witnessed the other night will continue to be spewed out of the gut of W1A until the BBC is a spent force.

As a Licence Payer I want the BBC to succeed, but if they continue to make dross like this, I can't see much reason for viewers to be loyal.

Michael Barrymore would be a huge risk to go from utter obscurity straight back to prime-time. He's not really been tested in any other format beforehand and he'd be asked take the helm of a show where you really don't need to do much to piss the viewers off. I'm afraid there's also that court of public opinion to take into account, and a lot of people deserted him not only over the Lubbock situation but his divorce and everything else surrounding that afterwards. Whether that's right or wrong, and he suffered hugely from the fact it was a different, even more brutal time to deal with tabloid attention, it would a huge leap for him to take over a show which would involve so much pressure.

In terms of Sounds Like Friday Night, I have a disagree of sympathy both with the BBC and andyd. It is half-baked and it doesn't really seem to serve anyone, and it does seem to be too obsessed with being cool. However, simply bringing back something like Top of the Pops wouldn't cut it any more. The kids aren't tuning in to see a lot of bored looking people dancing to an artist miming on stage any more. Music performances have become more like real-life YouTube videos, something the BBC has never quite worked out with its Eurovision staging. The only way you could do a straight chart show nowadays and have any hope of mainstream appeal is if you had X Factor production values, and that's difficult to justify. I also suspect the chart these days is further removed from what the older generation would be happy to listen to than it ever was. It's a shame really, because the Ariana Grande concert was the last cross-generational "watch with the family" music event I can remember.

The thing is, it's very easy to say "why don't they listen to what the public want?" Most of the time if you ask the public what they want they'll give you a completely different answer to what they'd watch. Anyone who's run a newspaper and seen a marketing team tell you the focus group wants good news on the front page will know that feeling.

I'd love Barrymore to come back, but another concern is would his own mental health cope not just with a return to recording bulk shows as well as the tabloid attention that would come with it?

Barrymore has become accustomed to not having to please an audience all of the time, and getting back in the habit of doing that could have disastrous consequences. Watching his interviews, he states that his addictions to drink and drugs was a result of having to come off the high of being in a studio and entertaining. He said nothing could replace that buzz and did all he good to keep it going.

20 years ago he'd have been ideal for something like the Generation Game but now even without the baggage he wouldn't necessarily be. It's all about the fit too - I don't think the Generation Game would work with Ant and Dec for example. It is a show which relies much more on the host than I think we ever realised.

Barrymore takes over any show he’s on and makes everything about himself. He’d be a disaster on The Generation Game.

There was similar, and justified in my opinion, fears when Peter Kay's name was being thrown about for suggested hosts.

Yep. You only have to look at how he wanders off round the back of the set or wherever when he’s being interviewed.

I was never a fan of Barrymore's talent format, but the game shows are legendary.