Coronavirus - Impact on live/recorded shows

Yes, great scripted performer as the presenter, as well as on KYTV, One Foot in the Grave and the various clip shows he did, but not good at improv. He has said he was heavily involved with the writing behind HIGNFY - not sure if that was the case for WILTY?

Yes, he hosted it the week Trump was elected, and started the show by saying "In the news this week... aaarrghh!"

As mentioned, these days there's normally only one or two new hosts a series these days, and otherwise they makde use of about half a dozen regulars - Armstrong, Mangan, Coren Mitchell, McGovern, Brand, Clunes, Lineker (who's done it quite a lot now). It's probably the best of both worlds, they have various reliables and then every so often they can bring someone new in to make a bit of a splash.



Indeed, back in 1996. I remember they said when he left he'd be making a guest appearance, although I don't think it was intended to be the first episode, it certainly wasn't billed in the Radio Times. If you didn't know he was leaving it would have seemed a bit strange. Alan Davies, Clive Anderson and Eddie Izzard were guest captains, and Martin Clunes and John Bird also sat in Merton's seat, but alongside Neil Morrissey and John Fortune respectively. It was an interesting series, there was the very memorable episode with Piers Morgan and the episode with Clunes and Morrissey was quite a famous one, it got a repeat later in the year and it was very funny, albeit incredibly rude and it wouldn't have worked as anything other than a one-off, because it had so little to do with the news. But some of the other episodes were a bit bleak without Merton.



I'm sure he was. It always used to be the case that Harry Thompson and Angus would write the finished script for HIGNFY because I remember him saying that they were both incredible pedants and would spend hours arguing over the correct grammar.

Angus is a wonderful performer and a very funny writer, I always loved KYTV and he's a fine comic actor as well, I saw the Radio Active reunion a few years back and he was brilliant in that, a masterclass in comic timing and delivery. He was perfectly good on WILTY as well, I know he didn't ad-lib or get involved as much as Rob does, but as a series goes on it gets more relaxed and there is more of an opportunity to send it all up, whereas when Angus did it there were more rounds and more of a requirement for the host to keep it on track, same as the early days of HIGNFY.

I think he is a good improviser - I remember him being involved in one of those improvised Jackanorys on Comic Relief in the nineties - but certainly on HIGNFY he had a specific persona which I think he wanted to stick to.

This is how the Dutch version has adapted social distancing. Note the screens between the panelists.

One generally Covid safe show that I don't think has been mentioned on here yet is Gogglebox. Last Friday's episode was the first to feature any noticeable changes: only one of the Leeds sisters is now featured alongside her partner who's never been on the show before, the father from the Siddiqui family isn't there anymore, it's now just the two brothers with a large gap between the two of them. Interestingly the pair in the caravan appear to have gone into lockdown together so they can continue to be on the show!

They appear to be filming it earlier in the week with most of the shows covered airing between Friday and Tuesday (Gino, Fred and Gordon was featured but that could have just been a preview copy), presumably so they can put it together with a smaller production team rather than filming it later in the week and being up against it to deliver by Friday.

I expect they just leave the cameras in situ in their living rooms all week so no one has to enter the house. I wouldn't be surprised if C4 extend it by quite a few weeks as it's still rating amazingly well for them and it's the only new thing they'll have produced over the next few weeks that will actually be filmed normally. I expect the cast are happy to have something to do!

The previous episode also had a noticeable amount of shows from the previous Friday-Monday - I got the impression they were trying to get as much filming in before lockdown was announced and then give themselves some breathing space to work out logistics for after - although to be fair the show does tend to heavily lean towards things on at the weekend a lot of the time anyway.

Channel 4 have said the cameras are fixed in the homes for now - https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/reality-tv/a31924286/gogglebox-coronavirus-filming/

Hey Gent, been panic buying? Save some toilet rolls for everyone else!

Gent (Ghent in English) is a city in the Netherlands so I assume that’s his location rather than his name.

Edit: sorry Belgium.

Ah. I don't speak Dutch, and if the English spelling is different that explains why I didn't catch it. Thanks.

It's got the shows best ratings since 2016, up 20% year on year. Is just a comforting watch in some ways during this and perhaps a bit of a guide to things to catch up on too.


Friday Night Dinner benefitting hugely too - the first episode got around 2.5m viewers overnight whilst previously I think it's not got much past the million mark. Is much deserved too - it's been quietly superb for years now and as presumably The Last Leg won't be returning anytime soon I think they'd be foolish not to rerun it from the beginning once this series ends.

Channel 4 probably won't go as far as repeating FND from the beginning given it's easily available on All4 and Britbox but I think it would be a good opportunity for things like Derry Girls and The Windsors to be repeated after Gogglebox since they're newer and probably would benefit from the lead in.

Ian was also the last guest on Room 101 with Paul hosting before it got turned into a generic panel show.

Just watching the extended HIGNFY. Works a lot better than I thought it would - Steph's really good, although I occasionally get the feeling they've re-recorded some of her links (probably necessary for continuity and such). Ian and Paul are playing off each other more since they haven't got an audience to do that with, and Paul in particular looks like he's having more fun than he has in years.

Edit: 25p credits for some reason.