Returning this week...
The Big Narstie Show, Channel 4, Friday, 11.05pm
This week sees the return of Big Narstie’s bold, brash and streetwise chat, comedy and music show. In theory, it’s aimed at a younger audience than many other chat shows, but it’s proven to be a hit with the critics and tastemakers too – it scooped this year’s Bafta for Comedy Entertainment programme.
And while it may be Big Narstie’s show, it’s also helped to launch co-host Mo Gilligan into the mainstream.
The comedian first found a following posting videos online – Drake and Ian Wright were among his most high-profile fans. That led to him becoming Big Narstie’s sidekick, and he’s since gone on to land his own series, The Lateish Show with Mo Gilligan, as well as a Netflix stand-up special. Just in case anyone did need further evidence that his star was on the rise, last year he joined the panel of The Masked
Singer, arguably ITV’s most talked-about Saturday night show in years.
He recently proved he could do early mornings as well as late nights and prime time when he hosted a one-off revival of The Big Breakfast as part of the Black To Front project, Channel 4’s initiative to increase Black representation on-screen and more widely in the TV industry.
It’s an issue that is clearly important to Mo, who has launched The Lateish Accelerator Programme, creating production roles on the second series of his Lateish Show to boost the careers of talented individuals from underrepresented groups. Speaking about the project, Mo said: “A lot of young people often say I can do things online and carry on like that, but TV gets you to an audience that you wouldn’t necessarily get from just broadcasting online.
“With the Accelerator Programme, we were able to offer not only great opportunities in front of the camera but also behind it. It’s still early days but if we can give people these key opportunities and I can help do that in some small way – I will absolutely do my best.”
So, with Mo and Big Narstie at the helm, it’s no wonder that The Big Narstie
Show is back for a new series, or that it’s attracting the sort of guests that mean it can hold its own in a slot that overlaps BBC1’s flagship chat show, The Graham Norton Show.
While promoting The Big Breakfast revival, Gilligan said his dream guest would be Idris Elba, so he’ll undoubtedly be thrilled that the actor is dropping in tonight. The star of The Wire, Luther and The Suicide Squad can currently be seen in the Western The Harder They Fall on Netflix, but he’s also got plenty of other projects on the go to talk about.
Also dropping by for a chat is comedian Katherine Ryan, who has recently published her memoir, The Audacity, and the line-up is rounded out by British rapper Digga D. Plus, there will be the hosts’ trademark mix of sketches and anarchy.