Mock The Week - Series 9, BBC2 Thursdays 10pm (Merged)

The South African guy just seemed to be showing off that he could speak languages that most of us couldn't. I don't know what the punchline of that commentary bit was supposed to be. I suppose just that he made enthusiastic noises for about a minute? It was just lost on me, as a cultural reference. The only thing the audience could've been laughing at was "haha, African languages sound funny." Unless they were all really fluent.

So across his entire stand-up section, the jokes were "funny noises," and "knock knock knock."

That said, makes me feel fairly good about my chances at TV comedy.



Didn't mind Jarred Christmas. Think the main flaw about this is that they were just talking about... nothing. A world cup result that they didn't know about, and I honestly couldn't tell whether the budget had been announced before they recorded the episode. I couldn't remember whether it was announced on Tuesday or Wednesday.

A 2.5% rise in VAT is hardly a comedy goldmine at the best of times.

Just... really bland. I was quite glad when the first round finished. But then the rest was equally dull.
 
A good line-up this week it was one of the funniest I've seen in a while. But have just been watching old repeats on Dave with Frankie and they are so much better.:(
 
I would suggest Russell Howard is not the right kind of comedian for a regular slot on news satire. His spin on the world is a very particular one of childhood and he is best when interacting with a young live audience. His appeal is not broad enough for the MOTW role and his naff, mannered jokes often jar.
 
I'm not sure how the booking list works. Some guests do some shows but not others.

I wonder that if it's who the booking agent is or the production company etc. or that the guests want to keep to a minimum the shows they appear on.

HIGNFY
MtW
8-10 Cats
Would I Lie..
The Bubble
Opinionated
Stand Up For The Week
QI
The News Quiz

The list could go on




I think they need new guests but the producers/editors have to make sure that they get a decent showing and not let the regulars run the show.
 
I would disagree totally with that.

He's generally poor and often lazy in his work (as he has been over many years) - they have to create special rounRAB in which only he takes part to justify him being there.

For me he is the weak link amongst the regulars and more and more looks like an embarassing old uncle that you feel obliged to invite to family occassions.
 
I actually thought Dennis was the stand-out comedian in this episode. Not sure if that's because he's upped his game or if the others are much poorer now.
 
I agree.
I always wonder if his stage act is the same when he is just talking. He has a funny way of talking even if he is just talking about anything you expect it to be funny and it usually is.
I think Russell is totally unfunny like an annoying student you are forced to share with!!
 
It may have been Comedy RoaRABhow but he would have definately used it at the Comedy Store.

He used the ketchup routine on both and also 80s life, such as a slik dressing gown with dragon print and that other thing you mentioned ;)
 
Yeah, I've been watching stand up on Paramount/CC for as long as I can remember, but a lot of people don't even have that channel. It's interesting when you see someone like Stewart Francis on MtW, especially his first few appearances, he'd do material that he'd been doing for years and years (and often still gets repeated on Comedy Central), but most viewers had never seen it before so it was as if it was new. I don't blame him really, and he has come up with new stuff more recently so fair play to him.

I'm glad of the recent resurgence of stand up but I do prefer watching it on Comedy Central to the BBC. It's a more relaxed atmosphere and they always seem to get longer somehow, even though they're normally fitting 4 stand ups into half an hour. BBC shows just seem so rushed. And the little snippets of stand up you get on MtW are almost pointless unless you're a quick-fire comedian.
 
I agree they both like crafted jokes which are often intellectual or clever, based on seeing contradictions or re-interpretations or whatever, rather than being just nasty or rude or crude.

However, I wouldn't say they were interchangeable. A lot of Jimmy's material is darker or potentially offensive. Also, it seems to me he is more quick-witted; he draws from a stock of old material, but he also comes up with new stuff, especially if given some advance warning (as I gather often happens with MtW). He mentioned an example on Ross the other week: an audience member had requested a joke about dragons, and Jimmy wrote one during the interval. Not quite rapier speed, but good enough for MtW. My impression is that Milton isn't in the same league.

(I think Frankie was the same. Much of his material seemed to be new for MtW, written just hours or days before the show. He'd then get flack for trying to reuse it in subsequent live gigs.)
 
Yeh , same here, gone from being my least fav to fav. I can never forgive Ed Byrne for the mobile ad campaign he did that seemed ot go on for about 23 years so I wasn't gutted to see him not take part in the stand up round. That f**** mobley or mowgli orwhatever the f*** it was called in the adverts gives me nightmares.
 
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