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I took part in a pilot today that I’d been told would be the British version of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show”. Like the many, many other UK shows that have had a go at that, it wasn’t. I don’t know why we aren’t capable of producing an effective and clever daily or weekly satire show in this country, but it must be something to do with the way we make TV here, because Jon Oliver has gone to America and managed it. And he is British. But it’s telling that he had to leave Britain to be able to do it.
Like a lot of TV at the moment, this pilot seemed to mistake being rude and controversial as equalling being comedic or clever. But promoting and repeating stereotypes and trying to be edgy for the sake of it doesn’t equate to satire. I turned down the chance to appear on the Katie Hopkins show (as well a big bag of money in the process) because I hate this lazy and potentially dangerous and dehumanising desire to just be offensive for no other reason than wanting to make a living as a pantomime villain all the year round. But having any person with extreme views at the helm of a show that hopes to be satirical, even in the broadest sense of the word, is not the answer. You need someone who thinks about stuff, has an open mind, is prepared to challenge their own beliefs and who is actually funny. If you are looking to copy Jon Stewart, which is seemingly what everyone is trying to do, then what you’re copying is not the fact that he’s doing a show about the news, it’s the fact that he’s sharp, clever, challenging, childish when he needs to be, offensive when it suits the subject and serious when it is called for. His show reflects his politics, but not exclusively and there’s a humanity behind it.
I sat on a sofa with two very funny comedians who were entirely underused, as a non-comedian went for the jugular and attacked Corbyn and refugees and then wasted his time asking Alex Salmond stupid questions, which he managed to bat off with wit and intelligence. I am all for stupid questions, as you may have noticed, but these ones were designed to have no real answer, to be jokes for the interviewer, who to be fair was not as interesting or as funny as the man he was attempting to mock. It reminded me of hearing George Lamb (what happened to him) asking Ray Davies a load of stupid questions on 6 Music until Ray Davies hung up. Why waste the opportunity?
And if you’re going to tackle a subject that everyone is talking about, like Jeremy Corbyn, then you not only need to avoid making the same obvious jokes and try to get to the heart of the matter. There’s plenty to satirise Corbyn about and I am sure a US satire show would dig deep and find the stuff worth talking about, but what’s the point in repeating the kind of tabloid accusations that everyone has heard anyway?
I am not saying I should host the UK version of the Daily Show (even though I clearly fucking should), but there are a lot of witty and clever comedians out there who have the necessary subtlety to do a properly satirical TV show (which, in an ideal world might not be put together so that it’s not a wrong copy of what Jon Stewart is doing, but it’s own thing). My advice to TV executives would be to start by selecting a great host who would be capable of writing the whole show themselves and then assemble a team around that one person, who either complement or rub against them. Those US shows are good because they have a fantastic team of people who work their arses off to make stuff that’s entertaining, illuminating and of worth. In the UK we seem to just chuck a load of people together and hope that it will somehow make a show. I’d love us to have an effective topical satire show on UK TV, but we haven’t got close.
Although my contributions were adequate, if brief, I am delighted (as I think the other panellists might be) that this show will never get seen by anyone. It was pointlessly nasty, as a substitute for wit and thoughtfulness, but that’s a curse that seems to have pervaded this kind of programme in the last couple of decades. There have been some satire shows that have been more worthy, but they have generally been rather light and failed to challenge the views of the people putting them together. Or just lacked the focus of the successful US shows.
I am not particularly slagging off this particular production which was made on a small scale by people who seemed nice enough and are dipping their toe into a new line of programming for them. It’s just so surprising that given how obvious it is to do a UK version of the US satire shows how no one who has tried has seemed to understand why they work or what is required. And maybe it’s down to UK TV not paying enough for creatives or just increasingly leaving the creation of formats to producers and executives, rather than writers or funny people.
I went home and watched Interstellar. And then wondered how something like that got made as well? This is an insane business I am in. I’m just going to play myself at snooker.
