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Safety goggles. Right-on ‘gags’. CHRISTOPHER STEVENS says the new Generation Game sums up why the BBC can’t do family fun any more
Didn’t they do well? no, they did not. Bake Off cast- offs Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins last night took a great British institution and ran it into the ground. the BBC’s Easter Sunday attempt to resurrect the Generation Game was cheap, shoddy, devoid of genuine slapstick and barely able to raise a single titter in an entire hour.
this woeful flop summed up everything, with the notable exception of its flagship Strictly, that’s wrong with our national broadcaster’s approach to family entertainment.
despite a heritage of great gameshows and variety comics, Auntie has lost all ability to haul up her bloomers for end-of-the-pier larks that have broad appeal and bond an audience.
Hamstrung by political correctness, this was a Generation Game in which ’ elf ’ n’ safety appeared more of a concern than laughs.
the lowest point came with that classic challenge — spinning the dinner plates on bamboo poles. Everyone, including Mel and Sue, had to wear safety goggles.
Witless ‘personalities’ you’ve never heard of from reality tV shows you’ve never watched gawped at the camera and fluffed their lines. the only guest with a claim to genuine celebrity, Martin Kemp of Spandau Ballet, looked like he wanted the studio floor to swallow him up.
Every segment felt as if it had been assembled from a bag of off-cuts, with the camera lurching back and forth between contestants. the director couldn’t even get the canned laughter right — often stopping it dead mid-guffaw.
With all due respect to the great man, the whole thing could scarcely have been worse if they’d dug up Brucie to present it. it was all so contrived and patronising — to contestants and viewers.
Forsyth, who compered the show from 1971 to 1977 and again in the early nineties, constantly teased participants and mocked them as they struggled to complete the games. His despairing looks to camera, as another challenge ended in disaster, were the highlight of the show.
Camp compere Larry Grayson, who took the reins between 1978 and 1981, was gentler but still withering. A roll of the eyes or a little twitch of the mouth told 18 million viewers on a Saturday evening that he was at his wits’ end with another hapless couple.
But Luvvies Mel and Sue are far too inclusive and non-judgmental ever to utter a hint of cruel humour. instead, they adopted an irritating whimsy: all eight of the contestants were told how wonderful they were, what lovely faces they had and how talented they seemed.
the duo took it in turns to deliver laboured lines, killing all hope of the ad libs that made the original show such unpredictable fun.
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plain fact is that a couple of right- on, Oxbridge wits like Mel and Sue are not the right faces for good old knockabout peak viewing tV on a Bank Holiday. nobody at the BBC understands this, because they’re all right- on Oxbridge types themselves, who would die rather than admit at a dinner party they ever watched the Generation Game.
Mel and Sue proved they can be a delight in a cookery tent, but they’re entirely the wrong casting for the kind of game where Gran and your Uncle norm are encouraged to make perfect fools of themselves for daft prizes.
though the Generation Game was based on a dutch format in the Sixties called Eén van de Acht (One Of the Eight), it’s heritage was rooted in the variety shows of the Fifties, the staples of a summer season in seaside towns like torquay and Weston-super-Mare. Good comics could make fools of the participants and gee up the crowds until everyone forgot to be embarrassed and just had a laugh together. Such audiences didn’t want ironic wordplay and political commentary — they just wanted to let their hair down.
Brucie and his contemporaries, such as Frankie Howerd, ted Rogers and tommy trinder, could play an auditorium like a pinball machine, pinging jokes off anyone who caught their eye. the quicker the repartee, the bigger the laughs.
Yes, the BBC nurtures plenty of young comedians starting out through its panel games and radio shows, but its right- on execs wouldn’t dream of encouraging that kind of seaside humour. it’s beneath their elevated principles.
that’s why many stand- up proteges on the Beeb sound as if their material is straight from leader columns in the Guardian.
One performer on last Friday’s now Show on Radio 4, Mae Martin, opened her act with this rib-tickler: ‘You may have heard the phrase “opioid crisis” in the news this week . . . it’s refreshing to see the word “crisis” in a headline without the word “housing” behind it.’
Er . . ? Me, neither. Even at the Labour Party conference, that gag would bomb. it’s humour for champagne socialist snobs.
But if the BBC ignores other kinds of entertainer, it’s no surprise they have nobody suitable for the Generation Game relaunch.
it might just have worked with their first- choice presenter, Miranda Hart, whose successful sitcom, Miranda, was the epitome of slapstick family entertainment. But she sensibly ducked out after an unscreened pilot in 2015.
A rethink followed, before the announcement of just four episodes with Mel and Sue. that has now been cut to two shows, and on last night’s evidence they’ll be lucky to find enough usable material even for that. no one had bothered to think up any new games — along with the spinning plates the producers disinterred old favourites including the potter’s wheel, sausage making and the dance spectacular.
Just one of these a night was enough for Brucie — cramming them all in made clear the lack of confidence in this remake.
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FOR catchphrases — once the lifeblood of the show — forget it. this was non- sexist, equal opportunities, fun- filled feminism, and neither Mel nor Sue were going to ‘give us a twirl’ .
i suppose Sue did mutter once: ‘Let’s see the scores on the doors’, a line from the Grayson era, but she sounded ashamed of herself.
A perfect illustration of why they got it so badly wrong was also aired on itV3 last night — an excellent two-hour tribute to Larry Grayson. Catchphrases were his props, and he learned the art of wielding them during an incredible apprenticeship of more than two decades as a virtual unknown in the working men’s clubs.
When he walked on, his first move would be to run a disdainful finger up the mike stand and murmur: ‘Look at the muck in here!’
that didn’t just give him an opening laugh — it offered the audience a chance to settle in and remind themselves what they could expect from Larry. no matter how many times they’d heard the gag, they howled.
Some might argue that traditional family entertainment of this ilk is a relic of the past — but i disagree. Ant and dec have proved that, pulling in audiences of eight million or more on Saturday night takeaway on itV.
At the weekend, with his partner in rehab, and despite looking understandably apprehensive, dec delivered a triumphant solo performance. So much was riding on him — but the audience were willing him on, and the cheer that went up at the news he’s to be a firsttime father was genuinely moving.
Millions love him, proof that there is still an inexhaustible appetite for this brand of happy family- oriented comedy. Once, that spirit fuelled the Generation Game and made it tV’s most popular highlight. But the spirit was painfully absent last night.
We can only hope Brucie and Larry were not looking down from Variety Heaven. Mel and Sue turned their flagship into an embarrassing travesty.
they might have done better giving us a twirl.!