Mock the Week scrapped after UK ‘runs out of news’

THE BBC panel show Mock the Week, criticised by some for its Left-wing comedy, has been axed after 17 years.

The forthcoming series of the topical BBC Two comedy show will be the last.

The decision follows the cancellation of The Mash Report last year, after Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, signalled that comedy shows with perceived Left-wing bias would be phased out in an attempt to strengthen the broadcaster’s impartiality credentials.

Dara Ó Briain, who hosted the show, had denied any political bias, pointing out that it was natural to mock the government of the day.

“When a story pops up on Mock the Week, no one is going, ‘How can I bend this to an agenda?’” he said in 2020. “You’re going, ‘What’s the gag? What is the joke here? Where can I find the joke?’”

The show proved controversial in the years when it featured Frankie Boyle as a regular panellist. He caused uproar by telling an off-colour joke about the Queen and making offensive remarks about the appearance of Rebecca Adlington. Boyle left the show in 2009.

Jon Petrie, the BBC’S latest director of comedy, is said to consider panel shows to be an outdated idea.

In a speech in May outlining his vision for BBC comedy, Mr Petrie said his focus was on sitcoms and comedydramas, citing the success of Motherland, Ghosts and The Outlaws.

The final series of Mock the Week will begin in the autumn. The BBC said: “We are really proud of the show but after 21 series, we have taken the difficult decision in order to create room for new shows.”

Angst Productions, which made the show for the BBC, said it had been “occasionally controversial but always funny”.

Ó Briain joked: “That’s it folks, the UK has finally run out of news. The storylines were getting crazier and crazier – global pandemics, divorce from Europe, novelty short-term prime ministers. It couldn’t go on.

“We couldn’t be more silly than the news was already.”