James Walton

There is no alternative

Stand-up comedians now stand in for the establishment

Stand-up comedians: is there anything they can’t do? Not only do they make up a huge proportion of chat-show guests — and of chat-show hosts — they also present Horizon, give us guides to the night sky, utterly dominate panel shows and regularly pop up on Question Time. Recently, they even set up their own news discussion programme in the as yet formless shape of Ten O’Clock Live.

And that’s just television. In the lead-up to Christmas, Dawn French saw off Stephen King, John Grisham and Maeve Binchy to have the country’s bestselling hardback novel, while the fastest selling DVD in British history is Michael McIntyre’s ‘Hello Wembley!’, whose title is a clue to the type of places he and many of his fellow comics play these days. So how on earth did all this come about — and what effect has it had on the sort of comedy on offer?

It’s hard to imagine now, but, as one BBC producer puts it, ‘The received wisdom a few years ago was that you couldn’t put stand-up on telly. The feeling was that it’s not very visual, it’s just someone talking — and, in the jargon, television should add value.’ But then came BBC1’s Live at the Apollo and, in particular, that Friday night in November 2008 when the show was hastily chosen to stand in for the suspended Jonathan Ross. Having gone on a chorus girl, Live at the Apollo came off a star — and the BBC wasn’t slow to learn the lessons. The host that night soon got his own spin-off programme, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow (yes, him again), but this time in Saturday-night prime time. Comedy Rocks with Jason Manford has duly followed suit on ITV.

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