High-energy panel show The Imitation Game
Rory Bremner, Alexander Armstrong and Debra Stephenson on their fun new panel show…
The Imitation Game sunday / ITV / 10.05Pm
It’s hard to imagine Donald Trump, mary Berry and adele in the same room – but that’s exactly what you can expect (well, kind of…) from ITV’S new Sunday-night high-energy panel show, The Imitation Game.
Each week, the show – hosted by Alexander Armstrong – sees team captains and impressionists Rory Bremner and Debra Stephenson work alongside another top mimic in a series of fast-paced challenges.
Both teams go head-to-head as they re-enact iconic movie scenes, revoice news footage, sing songs as you’ve never heard them before, and put unlikely words into the mouths of famous faces.
TV Times caught up with Xander, 48, Rory, 57, and
Debra, 46, to find out more…
How would you describe the imitation game? rory: People enjoy impressions and they enjoy panel shows, so we’re putting those two things together. With impression shows, you either have the Who Do You Do or Copy Cats-type format from the 70s and 80s, which now feels slightly dated, or sketch shows, which both Debra and I have done, that are expensive and very intensive to make. This is a whole new format.
Xander: You’re slightly hobbled with the sketch format of impression shows because you’ve got this lovely impression – but you’ve then got to sit through a sketch that goes on forever! This is all about the voice and the face.
The show involves many quickfire rounds and lots of one-word impressions, is that right? debra: Depending on whether we’re doing the very fast-paced, oneword impressions, we can be doing anything from 25 to 45 impressions each in an episode. There’s about 80 voices per show between us all.
How much of the show is improvised – and how much do you have to rehearse? rory: It’s a mixture. On the one hand, you know certain things are going to come up, so you make sure you’re prepared for it. But for one round, where myself or Debra have to guess the real celebrity among two impressionists, that’s all out of the blue. It’s the spontaneous bits that work best.
do you have any favourite impressions that you do? debra: My favourite of Rory’s are David Attenborough, Prince Charles and Jacob Rees-mogg. rory: Debra does a brilliant Adele… debra: Yeah, I do Adele singing the song from the Gocompare advert! rory: There are some impressions that are such favourites they’re off limits. Alistair Mcgowan is known for doing Richard Madeley and Frank Skinner, so I wouldn’t do those as Alistair is the guv’nor.
Is there any rivalry on the show? rory: Not at all – we all just really enjoy people being terrific at voices. Xander: Often on panel shows you’ve got all these stand-up comics trying to race to the gag. But there’s
People enjoy impressions and panel shows, so we’re putting those two things together
Rory Bremner
no snapping at heels on this show. debra: What’s lovely is that all the guests bring their own variety of voices. So we’ve got US star Christina Bianco with all her classy, American, vocal impressions and people like Alistair, who does a lot of voices from the sporting world.
Does the programme showcase up-and-coming talents, too? rory: Yes. Luke Kempner has got so much talent. Christopher Biggins is a guest and Luke was so good at doing him that I felt rather uncomfortable. Even Biggins was shocked by how good Luke was!
Xander, you do a few impressions on the show, too, don’t you? Xander: I almost forgot I could do them and it was lovely doing Billie Holiday for the song at the end of the show. I discovered I could do Errol Brown from Hot Chocolate, too. I expect this could be a gateway drug to all sorts of other things…
The imitation game is previewed on pages 44-45