Generation Game to be brought back with Mel and Sue

Anyone who watched the 2005 version of the Generation Game where he appeared making a pot!


His passion for pottery is quite well known, he appeared on the Great British Pottery Throwdown and has a pot in the V&A. I seem to remember he wrote and starred in a sitcom on Radio 4 where he played a potter... although I can't find any evidence of that so I might have imagined it
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-03-16/why-is-johnny-vegas-a-judge-on-the-great-pottery-throw-down/

That's a bit unfair to Mel and Sue, Late Lunch and it's variants had studio audiences.

In this current era where if a prime-time TV show is presented by someone we don't know the audience spends half its time going "who's that?", I don't know if Dara is mainstream enough to carry a BBC One audience with him. Having seen his stand-up though, his improvisational skills are fantastic and he could no doubt handle the structure of the show.

I don't know if Mel and Sue were given this show as a reward for not going, but it does feel like the commissioning process started the day after Channel 4 took Bake Off. There's a perfect "damned if you do, damned if you don't" lesson for celebrities in Mel and Sue refusing to go to Channel 4. Everyone was screaming at Paul Hollywood for being a traitor, and now happily watch him and the new line-up without batting an eyelid.

The public, eh?

IIRC he was convinced he'd be out of a job if he walked because he didn't know for sure if the BBC would give him a new show. Even though Mary Berry's still popping up with her own things, none of them will reach the popularity of Bake Off. I'll admit I was one of the people calling Paul a swine under my breath at the time, but looking at it now, it was such a wise decision.

Exactly an hour earlier on ITV Baz Ashmawy hosted their latest prime time effort. (Although it's apparantly been moved to 4pm this weekend, so maybe you have a point!)



Dara is about as mainstream a comedian as you can get and though his BBC1 presence is few and far between he's been on BBC2 for years and done shows that reach way beyond the Mock the Week audience with Robot Wars and Stargazing. Although I wouldn't pick him for the Generation Game I think he is easily a big enough name to carry a primetime BBC1 vehicle.

Baz was the exact person I had in mind. No-one was focusing on whether he could carry the (terrible and badly edited) format, everyone has got so used to seeing Philip Schofield and the usual lot presenting every ITV show that the only question they had was "who's that?" Followed by a lot of people asking if all the big stars had turned it down. It handicaps a show from the get-go.

They can't win either way though - if it's one of the regular suspects you get all the comments about ITV using the same faces all the time and how they should give a newcomer a chance. And to be fair to ITV over the last couple of years they have been more creative in their choice of hosts, and to be fair the BBC have given Rob Beckett his primetime break this year.

TV used to have a lot of cheap fillers where people were given a chance to shine, it's no longer the case so it's very hard just to hit the ground running.

And to be fair that list of ITV’s ‘usual lot’ is actually longer than many people think if they actually thought about it for more than a second before tweeting garbage.

You recall correctly, it was called Night Class and he played a pottery teacher.

People got into the whole panto "boo hiss" reaction because yeah - it sucks that the BBC lost Bake Off to a commercial channel where the luxury of no-ads was a benefit. There was also the off chance that keeping the old team might allow them to just come up with a new baking show.

Also people just naturally dislike change, even happy change is disruptive and means a lot of adjustment. Nobody was ever going to be like "woo yay can't wait for Channel 4 to stick 5 ad breaks into that baking show I like"

But there was something of a split over the whole thing for the presenters. Plus rightfully the production team has to do what makes sense for them. C4 have handled the transition well without messing with the format too much. Back when Bake off ended was hard to know if the move would ruin the show concept or show it had it's time. The stand up to cancer shows have been excellent and the new presenting team starting to properly gel.

Speaking as a fan of a BBC show thats been sent to the commercial side before, and now is there again ("Robot Wars") - a good format gets you attached to cast and crew because they believe in the format too, audiences can tell when that's not happening. Dara O'Brian never gelled with me in the place of Craig Charles, he just never seemed to get as into the show or it's unique community as Phillipa and Craig did. You need someone who is willing to get a little invested for the contestants rather than an air of "please can we just get this done so I can collect the paycheque?"

Admittedly I missed opening 10 minutes but from what I've seen so far it does seem to be flowing a bit better. I dare say having got through one usable episode may have helped both Mel & Sue and the production team.