Silence Is Golden

U&Dave has a new commission on their hands, and from the depths of Richard Bacon, he's brought along a show where the audience must not laugh or make a single sound, but this proves to be difficult when you've got stand-up comedians who you're familiar with on every other original show on this channel. The whole audience has £250,000 up for grabs, but it's usually whittled down to £10,000 or lower.

For once, this isn't a panel show. But just because it's not part of an oversaturated genre means it's going to be good. This show sucks. It's uninspired, it's incredibly boring, and overall, it overimplies shock value to the point it has very little meaning. It feels like a heavily watered-down Japanese game show from the whole concept alone.

Dermot O'Leary is the presenter, and he feels completely unfit for a show like this; he's incredibly wooden and doesn't do anything noteworthy. He feels just as bored as the viewers watching, and I can't blame him there. It just feels like his agent thought this would be perfectly suited, and he had to go by the guidelines. I would say a comedian would be better suited, because it IS U&Dave, after all. Jimmy Carr? Wait... he already hosts a similar show to this one (Last One Laughing, based on a Japanese series).

And from Episode 1 alone, you have a severely bad contestant, a naked woman who serves no purpose other than to provide nudity for the sake of nudity, plenty of swearing (Yes, even Dermot drops an F-bomb, which you know its bad when that's the only thing I can say about him that he did in the whole first episode) and comedians who feel like they would be better off on another show than this one.

The show's production values feel CHEAP, there's little of anything that wides my eyes to say that "hey, this is a comedy show!" Even the logo feels cheaply done.

Overall, this show certainly feels silent, and does that make it golden? No, it doesn't! Richard Bacon provides yet another U&Dave original that completely fails, and it's sad because this format could have been much more entertaining. Unsurprisingly, the show got the axe after one series, so even to those who enjoyed this show, all they're gonna do is forget about it after a year or so. And that pretty much summons up the appeal of these low-effort comedy shows in a nutshell.

The audience need to stay silent. The show mainly tries to get them to laugh but also throws in jump scares.

The prize money for the audience starts at 250,000 pounds ($330K). There are about 75 people in the audience. The most they could each win is about 3,300 pounds ($4,400)

There's not much money at stake. And it doesn't take long before the prize money gets so low that it's hard to believe anyone cares if they win or not. One show I saw each person won 800 pounds and another they won 175 pounds. Wow.

There is a stage, an audience and a backstage area where the so-called comedians are sitting. It all manages to look and feel cheap.

I don't get the seriously poor reviews, personally we loved it and it created a lot of belly laughs in our house. Some of the comedians were comedy gold and we discovered a few we'd not heard of before. Simple and effective concept. We found it very easy viewing and was impressed by the differing comedian styles used to find weaknesses and make them laugh. The bribes and naked part I didn't like much but thankfully that was only a small part in most episodes. I found the most expensive comedians were the ones who were given a decent stint to get personal and start story telling where the crowd were really involved.

Well done and more please.

I love this show, it is something different and a bit more out there. I find the anger of the audience members amusing when someone makes a noise. Not all acts are up my street but there are quite a few different ones. Not all acts are stand ups, some are there for their weirdness or acts that are for frights. How hard is it for the performers to do their stints to absolute silence?(maybe why it's had the negative reviews, they are used to a laugh track)The prize money for the audience doesn't seem much but how much money do you get given on a night out? If they lose it all a charity will get the money.

What a fab show from U & Dave. Watched with hubby and laughed from start to finish. Love the anger on the audience faces when someone losses a chunk of money. Definitely recommend watching. The acts are all pretty good too with some really funny moments. Some were a little unexpected but definitely gave a laugh. Absolutely hilarious watching audience trying not to laugh or make no noise either. Definitely red to record a second series. Also, Dermot is absolutely brilliant presenting the show and does catch a few of the audience members out when he asks them a question or two loosing them dosh.