Have I got too much news for you?

Russell Howard’s Good News and Frank Skinner’s Opinionated are the latest in a slew of programmes offering a satirical take on current events. Are you still laughing? In retrospect, perhaps this wasn’t the ideal week for Russell Howard’s Good News to return. Writing topical comedy is hard. Writing upbeat topical comedy is harder. Writing upbeat topical comedy during the least amusing week in recent memory is just plain stupid. Between the stories of bombings and war and death and financial cuts and impending nuclear catastrophe, Russell Howard should probably consider Thursday’s episode a success by managing to go the distance without curling into a ball and weeping into his clenched fists. But he’s not alone. Right now you can barely move for televised topical comedy shows. As well as Good News, a new series of Frank Skinner’s Opinionated starts tonight, competing with Channel 4′s 10 O’Clock Live and Stand Up for the Week – not to mention the current Mock the Week repeats on BBC Two and the impending return of Have I Got News For You. That’s an awful lot of programmes competing for what isn’t a particularly big patch of turf, and it’ll be interesting to see what the result of this bun fight is. In general, topical comedy lives and dies by the quality of the news. If it’s been a big, busy week then there should be more than enough to go around. But if there’s been a tragedy – or, worse, no news at all – it could mean several shows will end up all scraping the bottom of the same empty barrel. But there’s a plus side to this sudden glut, of course. This is the first time in years that viewers can pick and choose from a smorgasbord of different topical comedies rather than just mopping up whatever scraps are fed to them. Not that the differences between these shows will be immediately clear, of course – despite the recent comedy boom, there’s still a tiny and slightly incestuous dollop of talent to go around. For example, Stand Up for the Week features Jack Whitehall (Mock the Week, Tonightly, TNT Show), Andi Osho (Mock the Week, Tonightly), Kevin Bridges (Mock the Week, Have I Got News For You), Rich Hall (Have Got News For You) and Jon Richardson (Have I Got News For You). And the pool of topical comedy writers is even smaller – it’s not uncommon to find a 10 O’Clock Live writer has also written for Mock the Week or Have I Got News For You, or that a Stand Up for the Week writer has written for Tonightly or 2DTV or The Friday Night Project. Most of these have also written for Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Almost all of them helped to write Robert’s Web. As a result of all this interbreeding, you could argue that many of today’s shows lack a distinct voice; something that’s always been intrinsic to the success of news-based comedy, from David Frost to Stephen Colbert. But look closely enough and there are still a few differences to be found. Perhaps the best example is the manner in which each show dealt with the Japanese earthquake. Being a weekendy, home from the pub affair, Stand Up for the Week barely even mentioned it at all, paring it down to a brief acknowledgement at the start and a line in a Rich Hall shaggy dog story about Mothra’s inability to cope with bureaucracy. Having slightly more of a Daily Show-esque leaning, the steadily-improving 10 O’Clock Live at least allowed Charlie Brooker a Newswipe-style deconstruction of how the tragedy was reported, albeit one indirectly followed by Jimmy Carr in a slaphead wig telling a string of end-of-the-pier “bunga bunga” Berlusconi gags in a slightly offensive Italian accent. Of this week’s new shows, it’ll probably be Frank Skinner who’ll broach the subject more openly. The format of Opinionated is more loosey-goosey and guest-driven, so a discussion of events could feasibly take place without derailing the episode completely, but whether or not it will actually happen is anyone’s guess. So what do you make of this sudden influx of news-based comedy shows? Are there too many and, if so, which would you rather avoid? Your thoughts below, please. Comedy Television Stuart Heritage guardian.co.uk

Posted by on March 25, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.