It's all the same jokes as you'd here on a TV show in the States, you just need to substitute our disposal pop celebrities for theirs. Like for Chas McDevitt substitute, I dunno, Pete Seeger or someone.
The thing I like best about this show (apart from the usual broad selection of UK accents) is peering into the totally unfamiliar and hapless universe that is English pop music. Are there people really stars?
I never have any idea who they're quizzing, or who they're quizzing about - it might as well be a show about Portuguese pop. Except that might sound good.
Yeah it's got a lot better since Simon Amstell started presenting it. As for the quality of English pop stars, well they're generally pretty rubbish - but Amy Winehouse?? I think she's the best singer since Ella Fitzgerald!
Unfortunately, wikipedia lists all the episodes, and Shane MacGowan is on none of them. This was great, however, but in an Iron Chef / Cash Cab / etc. kind of way - I totally enjoyed one, but for the idea and format more than for what it was, and so diminishing marginal returns on viewing other episodes.
I'm crazy for Bill Bailey, however--and I think I've just joined the Phill Jupitus Fan Club as well--so the returns are a little different for me. They'll diminish, I'm sure, but not soon enough to keep me from wasting a helluva lot of valuable time in front of a tiny screen with bad sound.
I'm with you on Bill Bailey: I was lucky enough to catch his standup show years ago - on stage he was like he is on screen but more so: more surreal/absurdist, more spaced out, less predictable, and a generous helping of physical comedy, which he's ver good at. He's now a regular fixture on the panel games, which seems to be one of the standard paths for comic-celebrities in England (cf. Paul Merton, Stephen Fry, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Kenneth Williams et al).
Re microcelebrity - I have a similar feeling whenever I chance across dancing with the stars - I keep wondering where the stars are. The hapless universe of English pop seems all too apposite; I think one fundamental difference between celebrity in England and in America is that, even in this age of reality show pseudo comebacks, these people are much more like simple consumer products in the US: they do their bit and then get off the stage, or resurface only in people magazine or some other such hell-hole, while in England they'll tend to show up in newspapers, on panel game shows like this, as occasional broadcasters or, worst of all, doing panto around the depressed towns of Britain's northwest coast. My lingering, irrational fondness for Ian McShane comes from the long years of hard time he did in this draughty, desperate half-world, before appearing in a couple of movies and suddenly becoming rich and recognised in Deadwood.
I've always sort of blamed that phenomenon on the relative size of the celebrity worlds. "There's only 20 actors in England" is a standard joke of mine because you really do see the same faces time and time again, whereas in the States the pool is so much larger that no one ever need work with the same person twice. You could cast ten times the number of panel shows we have on American television and not come close to scraping the barrel dry.
I think there might be only 20 actors in England because anyone who gets any profile immediately migrates to LA and can no longer be found in rep. You have to make it big enough locally to keep getting work on TV without attracting attention from across the pond, where the money is not comparable. When you think about it, it's amazing that there are so many people trapped in that little category.
I don't think it's amazing there are so many, but rather that they are so good. Though I think that must come from the fact that so many are in comedy, which is so culture-specific. Thought I joke about translating Never Mind the Buzzcocks into American, I don't think it would really work for two reasons: (1) I'm pretty sick to death of anti-celebrity jibes being treated as the apex of satire, as is endemic to US television comedy; what keeps it fresh for me when the Brits do it is that I've barely heard of any of their celebrities--as thedeli points out, it adds an insulating layer of WTFness to it all. (2) 80% of the humour on that programme derives from the delivery. I've been running this thirty seconds over and over in my head the past few days because the delivery is just so fucking good. I can't imagine any American host inflecting that "You're wrong" at the end as perfectly as Simon Amstell; he makes what's been obvious from the start sound like some sort of surprising--ergo amusing--revelation.
80% of the humour on that programme derives from the delivery.
I can't get over the way the American version of the office somehow turns the world's bitterest, most painful cringe-fest into a sitcom, apparently using substantially the same script as the British original. I couldn't get through more than 3 episodes of the UK version because I felt like an affectless husk of a person by halfway through episode 2. I don't want to get through more than 3 of the US version because I don't find it very interesting.
Also, Simon Amstell - brilliant and hateful. Name one US equivalent that combines these 2 adjectives. I think Stephen Colbert managed it for a few episodes, but now we all love him because we get the joke.
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momijizukamori
"I don't get it"
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I never have any idea who they're quizzing, or who they're quizzing about - it might as well be a show about Portuguese pop. Except that might sound good.
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Re microcelebrity - I have a similar feeling whenever I chance across dancing with the stars - I keep wondering where the stars are. The hapless universe of English pop seems all too apposite; I think one fundamental difference between celebrity in England and in America is that, even in this age of reality show pseudo comebacks, these people are much more like simple consumer products in the US: they do their bit and then get off the stage, or resurface only in people magazine or some other such hell-hole, while in England they'll tend to show up in newspapers, on panel game shows like this, as occasional broadcasters or, worst of all, doing panto around the depressed towns of Britain's northwest coast. My lingering, irrational fondness for Ian McShane comes from the long years of hard time he did in this draughty, desperate half-world, before appearing in a couple of movies and suddenly becoming rich and recognised in Deadwood.
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I can't get over the way the American version of the office somehow turns the world's bitterest, most painful cringe-fest into a sitcom, apparently using substantially the same script as the British original. I couldn't get through more than 3 episodes of the UK version because I felt like an affectless husk of a person by halfway through episode 2. I don't want to get through more than 3 of the US version because I don't find it very interesting.
Also, Simon Amstell - brilliant and hateful. Name one US equivalent that combines these 2 adjectives. I think Stephen Colbert managed it for a few episodes, but now we all love him because we get the joke.
odd.