“I eat prosecution lawyers for breakfast! I eat them also for lunch! And for tea! And elevenses! And midnight snacks!”
No, ITV have decided that their plan to run inferior reality TV shows against Big Brother this year was, well, a bit stupid. So instead they are investing in more dramas with David Jason in them. And a satirical news show presented by Sir Trevor McDonald called News Knight.
Minds be bogglin’. Watch this space.
Watch this space
Yes, it is preferable to watching itv.
So I saw it last night. Odd decision to repeat a topical news show after the news, opposite Newsnight and Question Time, on the busiest news day of – er- the year. THAT SAID:
The Format – Trev presents, with a panel to discuss items (similar to More 4’s The Last Word but less serious).
The Jokes – Mixture of standard pithy clip stuff, a few video manips but mainly autocue and over the the comedians.
The Comedians: Marcus Brigstock has done this before on his BBC4 Daily Show rip-off, and is OK. Unfortunately as a regular he was the weakest of the three. Uses glasses to pretend he is cleverer than he is though.
Reginald D.Hunter: Got all the big laughs (was often just repeating possible stand-up schtick) but definitely made it less cosy.
Clive Anderson: Gelled nicely, and was abrasive with McDonald stopping the format being too safe. We know he can do this sort of stuff, but his nervous delivery always makes things feel more rude and more live.
The prognosis? It actually wasn’t bad. I laughed a few times, and it was nowhere near as embaressing as, say, Get A Grip. They all seemed to be enjoying it, esp Trev, which made up for potential format flags. It is just a touch unfortunate that the non-regulars were the best thing on it.
i was suprised when i LOLd, cos at first i thought trevs attempt at a relaxed interaction with marcus et al was knuckle biting, but then it was quite funny. as you say, nowhere near as knuckle-biting as Get a Grip.
i even ROFLd at trevor saying “and now it’s time for our section called ‘racist and dead'”. this was a week or 2 ago, obv.
what about marcus B tho? his schtick is sometimes v offputting. i think it’s partially the perennial ‘someone has to do the easy jokes’ problem with topical satire.
Yes I fear Marcus B is the weak link – certainly on the show we saw. Obviously Trev’s schtick is the juxtaposition of serious newsreader and news, but he told his scripted jokes quite well and was happy to be a butt of the other stuff. The Racist and Dead segment was also nice because there was suddenly a bit of emotion in Trev’s delivery, hearing respected newsreader call Manning an offensive white bastard oddly gave the show the bite beyond the frippery.
(Apparently that comment got over 100 complaints. Well done.)
Here is someone who saw it being made:
http://joanies.vox.com/library/post/news-knight.html
I ended up seeing Marcus B at Glasto, and the easy gags thing was immensely frustrating. When he got a good head of anger up and went after something not entirely predictable he was v.enjoyable, but he’d then follow this with e.g. French-ppl-be-setting-fire to things. Needs more confidence in his own abilities.