If you wanted to know why stand-up is in such a parlous state these days, this film goes some way to explaining it. The celeb recruits are as unpromising a bunch as you could well find: some of them show little sign of having any sense of humour, and one (who used to be in Coro) struggles even to string a sentence together. Shaun Ryder is the classic bluff 'funny in the pub' northerner who is dismayed to find, when he gets on stage, that he has nothing to say. Curtis Pritchard continues to do his Wallace impression - I would say 'Wallace the plasticine figure' but that seems unfair as he is if anything more animated than Curtis. And that vicar from the Communards is, well, a vicar.
But the thing is, the mentors are not all that much better. Only one, Jason Manford, has really earned his salt as a comedian; the others, at best, exist in a little-frequented comedy Borderland of 'entertainment' shows on Dave. Their idea of comedy begins and ends with talking about themselves: this they think is entertainment.
I can well understand that the mentor who got Baroness Warsi had a sinking feeling: as a comedian she ticks pretty much every box imaginable for 'hopeless case' (not least, being from Yorkshire). But actually, she's not the worst of the bunch and she at least has some notion of what a stand-up performance requires. The part that made my heart sink was when she started an obviously heart-felt but ridiculous and deeply un-comic rant about how Old Etonians, not Muslims, are the real threat to Britain's security. I can understand her saying such things: but what bothers me is that *this was the part her mentor liked*! Laugh-free political ranting: this, too, is modern comedy (the mentor had said he is proud when his audiences don't laugh: I think he must feel pride quite often).
The take-home message: don't be expecting a new Billy Connolly or Peter Kay anytime soon.
5.3.20 Part 2: Well, they gave Warsi the prize but she didn't deserve it; she wasn't really any good, it's just that people were astonished she wasn't absolutely hopeless. If she really ever wanted to be a comic, she would need to get over herself; a necessary first step would be not to insist on being referred to as 'Baroness'.
I thought the vicar got the loudest cheers and probably was actually the best - maybe not surprising as he is used to speaking to small audiences. Curtis' mentor completely stitched him up by pushing him to improvise and interact with the crowd - something he was deeply uncomfortable doing - probably because she can't write material herself. In the end his sex-based routine really brought his creepy side, and icked the audience out. The others had reasonable material but didn't deliver it that well. I think the mentors were relieved that their proteges at least didn't clam up entirely, and were themselves on stage.
