Mock the Week

Synopsis

You wait ages for a half-decent topical panel game and then two turn up within two days of each other. This one comes from the creators of Whose Line is it Anyway?.

The similarity to the late, great Whose Line is enough to be obvious, but not such that it looks like a straight revival. In fact, this is a pretty neat adaptation of a classic format to a different style of humour. Rather than the off-the-wall surrealism of WLIIA, we have games based on current affairs, and there's more of a straight stand-up comedy feel to some of them rather than actorly improv. A few games are carried through from the previous show - celebrity dating videos work just as well in this format as they did in the original - but it's mostly a new show using only the basic template of the old. There's no real scoring system, and it's obvious that the show we see on TV is edited down from a much longer performance. An obvious reference point is Have I Got News for You, though in truth we suspect the real influences come more from the countless topical shows that seem to be crammed into every available space on Radio 2 and Radio 4 these days (even the title has a distinctly Radio 4 ring to it). There also seems to be a hint of If I Ruled the World..., the short-lived panel game hosted by Whose Line's Clive Anderson and featuring Jeremy Hardy, also a guest on the first episode of this show.

But enough of comparisons, the important thing is that this is a lot of fun. The show really got into its stride once the more rigid Whose Line-style games were sidelined, allowing the participants to riff off each over in a more relaxed fashion. The loss of Rory Bremner, who was not only sharp but also clearly loved doing the show (as was obvious from how often he cracked up laughing at other people's jokes) actually didn't impact on the show as much as we expected, and indeed the trend is now toward using younger comedians from the stand-up circuit, which works very well. Meanwhile Dara Ó Briain is both sharp enough to contribute to the general banter, and astute enough to know when to let the panellists get on with it.

A quick run-down on the main games is surely in order, so in brief they are:

• Headliners, in which the panellists suggest captions for a picture given the first letter of each word.
• The news wheel round, which has a different name each week ("Dara's Topical Gag Wheel.. Of Death!") but asks the players to be funny on "randomly"-selected topics.
• If This Is The Answer, What Is The Question, wherein questions are suggested to fit a provided answer.
• Scenes We'd Like To See, similar to the old Whose Line game of "Worst in the World", wherein the panellists provide one-liners in response to a given theme, such as "Things You'd Never Hear The Queen Say" or Rejected Opening Lines For The Next Harry Potter Book".

If there's one thing that grates is that the arbitrary scoring system adds absolutely nothing to the format (unlike Whose Line...? where Anderson got a lot of laughs out of it) and could be easily dropped. Also, some segments are rather too scripted to be believeable.

When it's on form, it's one of the funniest half-hours on television, and when it's not, it isn't. Nevertheless, we declare Mock the Week a winner and will now ask the entire cast to present the credits in a style of our choosing. Except they don't do that on this show. Pshaw!

Key moments

Tennis player Andy Murray made a couple of appearances in the audience with his girlfriend Kim Sears, and yes before you ask, the panel took the absolute **** out of both of them. The most memorable example was during a "Scenes We'd Like To See" round on 19 September 2013 where the subject "Unlikely Lines For Andy Murray To Think" came up with the panel doing impressions of him, especially with Ed Byrne's on form quick wit

Inventor

Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson.

Theme music

News Of The World by The Jam.

Trivia

The pre-publicity for the first series named Rory Bremner and Frankie Boyle as the team captains, but curiously Boyle didn't take the usual captain's chair in the middle of his team - instead Hugh Dennis sat there for the first show. And every subsequent show. On the fifth episode, Dennis was finally listed as one of the regulars in the end credits, and in the Beeb's publicity for the sixth and last programme in the series he had been officially promoted to actual team captain status. Ironically that week's show was replaced by a clips compilation anyway, as the 7th July terrorist attacks in London had caused a closedown of London's transport system, meaning that many audience members, as well as some of those due to appear on the programme, couldn't make it. However, the Channel 4 topical comedy 8 Out of 10 Cats which was being recorded in another studio at BBC Television Centre did go ahead. Cunningly, they made use of panellists and production team members from Mock the Week who turned up to fill the panel and audience. At the other end of the run, the last series lost its first episode due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

By 2013, straight repeats of old shows were amongst the most popular broadcasts on digital channel Dave. Cashing in on the sustained popularity, the BBC commissioned a series of themed episodes, cutting up from many series to look at topics such as health and animals. Mock the Week Looks Back At... did not air in Northern Ireland, where they showed a comedy series in Gaelic.

Micky Flanagan was the warm-up for many years.

Web links

BBC programme page

Wikipedia entry

British Comedy Guide entry

Pictures

See also

Weaver's Week reviews from 2005 and 2012

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