I was a panellist on the BBC3(?) show
Annually Retentive tonight. If you haven't seen it it's a kind of Larry Sanders version of a panel show, where you get to see all the behind the scenes anxieties of the host, Rob Brydon. But then they also have clips of the rather hack panel show he hosts. And to acheive this they actually film the panel show as if it was a genuine one. Which is where I come in.
It was filmed at TV Centre and the other panellists on my show were Jimmy Carr, Abit Titmuss and Rhys Thomas, with Dave Gorman and Jane Moore as team captains. Everyone from the production team made it clear that it was important that we just played the game for real, as if it was a genuine panel show, which was easy enough, as it wasn't any more ridiculous than the panel shows I have done before. If you had asked me which show was a parody that I had recently I would have plumped for
Never Mind The Fullstops, which even had an unlikely hissy fit from the host which would have made great behind the scenes footage for the show. Also I was a regular on the forgotten Clive Anderson lunchtime quiz "Back in the Day" which had the same basic premise of this spoof quiz (questions about what happened in a certain year) and I wouldn't be totally surprised if this had been the inspiration for the writers.
So anyway, it was easy to treat the quiz as a real one - in fact it barely crossed my mind that it wasn't.
I was a little nervy to start with and my first couple of jokes fell a bit flat with the audience. These affairs can be a fine balance. The audience were a little far away and it was noticeable that some more subtle jokes took longer to be understood than they might have been if the people laughing had been closer. But gradually things warmed up.
Jane Moore and me were asked to mime out the news event of Big Ben having stopped in 1976, which Jimmy Carr had to guess. That is a surreal moment in itself. Finally he got it, but I turned mock angrily to Rob Brydon saying that the item was flawed as it was not Big Ben that stopped, because Big Ben is the name of the bell, not the clock of St Stephens Tower. This discepency, I claimed, had played on my mind throughout and had resulted in my substandard mime.
Jimmy Carr chipped in saying, "Look what do people call the clock? If a lot of people call it Big Ben then it becomes Big Ben." Without missing a beat I replied, "No, that's not true, Jimmy. I mean a lot of people call you a wanker, but I still prefer to address you by your given name, Jimmy Carr."
The joke got a big laugh, but also a few controversial "ooohs" and for a few moments it looked like things might kick off a bit. I pushed it a little further and Brydon stirred up things a bit so it looked a bit ruder than I had intended. Jimmy seemed a little put out, but it was hard to tell whether this was genuine or just an act for the show. He did finally say "To be honest I do masturbate a lot, so it's fair enough."
I hadn't meant to be that offensive, it was a joke, but it was a joke that did rely on there being some truth in the idea. Dave Gorman chipped in to say "To defend Rich, he didn't say Jimmy was a wanker - he just said a lot of people call him that, which is true." And the thing is that Jimmy's act does slightly rely on him being a bit smug and superior, so it's not really that insulting.
Even though I have done the odd joke about him before, I don't really think he is a wanker though. I have found him charming and friendly on the times I have met him and he's a sharp and witty man as he proved tonight. Admittedly in "Someone Likes Yoghurt" I dismissed him as a purveyor of "feedline, punchline, next joke. Feedline, punchline, next joke. Joke after hollow, empty joke. Jokes that could have been written by a computer, with no moral compass." But that was a joke too. A joke really aimed at myself. I actually admire his ability to craft short, sharp gags of such high quality and though he occasionally oversteps the line with them.... well who am I to criticise that? As often as not when I appear to slag off another comedian I am really making a joke at my own expense, or highlighting my own comparative lack of success. There is as much envy in my constant digs at Bo'Selecta as anything else. I even quite like Patrick Marber in a way. I don't know if people get that I am mocking my own comparative failure when I bang on about these things. And to dismiss the idea of punchlines after talking about yoghurt for forty minutes seems like a delightfully pompous thing to do to me.
The show seemed to pick up a bit after all this, though I was slightly unsettled at the idea that Jimmy might have been actually annoyed. Surely he could take it if he can dish it out. And indeed my worries proved to be foundless as Jimmy was friendly as ever.
Maybe it was just an act and he secretly hates me.
But I don't care. I hate him too, the popular, successful tosser.
