It’s time to pull the plug on Bloke TV
As the Beeb kills off its most puerile and sexist panel show, JAN MOIR says plenty more are ripe for the chop
After 19 years, 28 series, 255 episodes, dozens of specials and the usual suspects thrashing around in a pile of freshly milked bile each week, the BBC has finally, finally, finally pulled the plug on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Hurrah for that.
As far as many of us are concerned, the demise of this spiteful, puerile, sexist panel show cannot come a moment too soon.
Made by blokes for blokes and broadcast to appeal to dim bulb blokes coming home after a blokey night in the Bloke Pub, it is just about the worst thing on bloke television. And that is saying something.
Panel shows such as eight Out Of ten Cats, Celebrity Juice, they think It’s All Over, Would I Lie to You, A League Of their Own, Mock the Week and Virtually famous have all ploughed the same weary furrow, providing a forum for the same cliquey gene pool of comedians and BBC pets to show off, to bitch, to act like angry Left-wing schoolboys and braggart bullies — or a combination of both.
Never Mind the Buzzcocks might not be the worst of this panoply of he-panel shows, but it was the first to shine in the new laddish regime — so does its sudden demise signal the end of the worst excesses of Bloke telly? fingers crossed.
for years Buzzcocks has been an enduring hit with its core audience, young-ish men whom I imagine to be lonely boys forever at a loose end, keen to amuse themselves once the allure of picking the curry stains off their Motorhead t-shirts and checking the airlocks on their home-brew kits has faded. Some of them have already started an online petition to save their favourite show, bless.
However, it’s too late, suckers. the plunging ratings can be no longer be ignored. Official figures for the show, which is broadcast at 10pm on Monday evenings, reveal that less than a million viewers now tune in. Which means i t attracts an audience six times smaller than that of Countryfile and less than half the viewers who tuned in to watch Mary Berry marinate her pheasant breasts (laddish snigger) on her latest BBC cookery show.
No wonder that BBC2 controller Kim Shillinglaw has decided not to recommission another series of Buzzcocks in a bid to ‘ create space for new entertainment formats’. Let’s make that ‘space’ huge.
Let’s hope this signals a moratorium on the endless, vicious little battles of the witless which have characterised Buzzcocks — and so many shows like it — for the past two decades.
LAuNCHed in 1996, it was supposed to be a straightforward comedy panel show with celebrity guests answering questions on pop music. Yet from the beginning it was always an uneasy clash between comedy and rock’n’ roll, between the c o me di a n hosts and the funny-guy team captains on one side, who delighted in baiting the musicians and stars who made guest appearances.
In short, it was a place where bitter B-list celebrities got together to bully needy C-listers — and thus feel better about their big, bad selves. Quite often, it made for uncomfortable viewing.
Asked if the faltering show was still viable when he took over the reins last year, Welsh comedian rhod Gilbert said: ‘I hope so! If I thought I was coming in just to stand on the bow while the bloody thing sank, I wouldn’t be doing it.’ Ship aground, captain! Since day one, the show has been put together by five comedy writers — all of them male, of course — and controversy was never far away.
fan highlights over the years include musician Huey Morgan ( front man of the fun Lovin’ Criminals) smashing his mug in a temper; chunky team captain Phill Jupitus walking off in a huff when rapper dappy made a joke about a fat person; and yes, dear old Lemmy from Motorhead also walking off when he finally understood that the waspish hosts were laughing at him, not with him.
few women shone in the show as they were more often than not reduced to token blonde status; dummies who were there to be demeaned by the boys.
everyone was ribbed, of course, but women more than most — it was a mystery why any sensible female agreed to appear.
Guest host Lorraine Kelly waxed Phill Jupitus’s leg and spanked f unny- guy team captain Noel fielding with a truncheon. Anthea turner was roundly mocked for a brave attempt to relaunch her career as a perfect housewife while Gail Porter, the tV presenter whose nude image was once beamed on to the Houses of Parliament, was shown no mercy when she refused to be rude about the rock star Michael Stipe, who fronted reM.
‘Well, go home then,’ sneered host Mark Lamarr. ‘If you are not going to show us your a**e or slag him off there is no reason for you to be here.’
‘thanks very much, Mark,’ she said, clearly affronted.
‘don’t be stroppy, young lady,’ he snapped.
Another host, Simon Amstell, was always the most vicious. When the troubled Amy Winehouse appeared, Amstell — supposedly a friend of the late singer — made jokes about her addictions, asking if she wanted some crack or some more to drink.
‘this isn’t even a pop quiz any more, it’s an intervention, Amy. We all care f or you, Amy,’ he smarmed, as concerned for her welfare as a buzzard swooping on a wounded mouse.
this show, which has always been a crucible of hostility, a place where arrogance and petty cruelty masqueraded as witty bloke-ish banter, is over not a moment too soon.
And plenty of others like it are ripe for the chop. the topical panel show Have I Got News for You is still easily the best of a bad bunch, attracting an audience of more than 4 million each week.
However, even this classic is flaunting signs of wear and tear. the guest presenters don’t always work and sometimes team captain Paul Merton, who can single-handedly launch HIGNFY into dazzling new heights of hilarity, looks bored.
Mock the Week, QI and other shows feature the usual dreary suspects, the same names and faces who turn up again and again on the creaking merry-go-round of big boy badinage and supreme male smuggery: comedians Alan davies, dara O Briain, Chris Addison, rory McGrath, david Mitchell, Jeremy Hardy and, of course, Stephen fry. ugh, kill me now.
Have I missed anyone out? Yes, stalwarts John Sessions, reginald d. Hunter and Alan Carr — who are all excused criticism, on the grounds that at least these comics are always genuinely funny.
NOte that no women — apart from the indefatigable comedienne Jo Brand — make a regular appearance on these shows. And that is because most f emale entertainers don’t see comedy panel shows as show- off gladiatorial contests which they must win at all costs.
Of course, the very worst crimes are committed down in the shallows of the panel game show genre. eight Out Of ten Cats with Jimmy Carr is si mply unwatchable, Celebrity Juice i s even worse. Written and presented by Keith Lemon, the alter ego of comedian Lee francis, it is an execrable pile of nonsense. female team captains, the tV presenters Holly Willoughby and fearne Cotton, allow themselves to be patronised by Lemon, but it’s the men who truly deserve our contempt.
A new low came recently, when reality tV star Joey essex was asked the name of Jesus’s mother. ‘Moses?’ he replied. In the last show of the series, Jimmy Carr and fellow comic Johnny Vegas were asked to eat food items then guess what each other had eaten by the smell of their breath.
Could it get any more puerile? Yes, rude remarks were made about an intimate part of fearne Cotton’s anatomy during the guessing game.
She looked shocked, as well you might. But if you thrash around with boy pigs in the celebrity boy sty, you must accept that you will get hosed down with muck. At least from today onwards, there is one less opportunity for them to do so.