Facing more heat than in Die Hard
ROAST OF BRUCE WILLIS COMEDY CENTRAL, 10PM
WHILE it first aired on Tuesday night, Fridays somehow feel a better fit for a vicious two-hour roast of a Hollywood movie star.
Roasts have become somewhat legendary in recent years, not least because being roasted was one of the last high profile gigs Donald Trump did before he made his rather improbable run for president of the United States of America (I often wonder how he got on with that, you seldom hear of him these days).
They’re are a long standing tradition in America and while there have been attempts to popularise the format on this side of the water, such as Roast Battle, also on Comedy Central, it’s just one of those things that the Yanks do better than anyone else.
The format is simple and brutal – you take one well known person, gather a bunch of friends and colleagues together and they all spend the next few hours saying the most degrading, insulting and profoundly mean things they can think of.
When it works, it can be brilliant, and Gilbert Gottfried’s roast of Hugh Hefner just after 9/11 remains one of the standout stand-up comedy moments of the last few decades – his gag about being late because his plane took a detour through the Empire State building shocked a still grieving New York crowd until he went into an inspired riff from the infamous comedy sketch The Aristocrats. You could actually see the catharsis in the room as they laughed for the first time in weeks. It was a true reminder of the importance of laughter in the face of tragedy and anger. The Bruce Willis Roast
(Comedy central, 10pm)? It was... okay, and there were some genuinely good gags from surprise guest, his ex Demi Moore, particularly her pops about Willis and Harvey Weinstein.
But the ghost of that creep hangs heavy over Hollywood and in a whole new era where people are castigated and sacked for saying the wrong thing, the traditional roast is under threat.
The famously difficult Edward Norton (when you’re as brilliant as he is, you can be as bloody awkward as you like, as far as I’m concerned) was a surprising guest, in that he was actually extremely funny, which is not the first quality that springs to mind when you think of the star of Fight Club and American History X...
The most promising programme of the weekend is undoubtedly Angela Carter – Of Wolves And Women (BBC2, Saturday, 9pm).
The author of classics like The Bloody Chamber and, of course The Company Of Wolves, Carter has been strangely neglected in recent years, so hopefully this will introduce her to a new generation.