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Show Me the Funny is ITV1’s new comedy reality game talent show. Thing. It’s a bold, exciting new concept, fronted by ITV’s go-to for bound-to-fail projects, Jason Manford, which sees 10 budding comedians (whose sole joke is that they think they’re cut out to be comedians) perform in front of a judging panel, made up of Alan Davies, cutting comedy critic Kate Copstick, and a guest judge. Each week sees one contestant eliminated by the judges, while those who remain have their eyes on the prizes of a national tour and their own DVD. (They can’t have ever been to HMV.)
This week, the 10 contestants/comedians (I don’t really know how to refer to them) were in Liverpool, but, rather than the show just focusing on the stand-up side of things, they first had to complete mindless Liverpool-related challenges out on the streets. For instance, they had to find as many people as they could called Michelle and try to set people up on (surprise, surprise) a blind date.
ITV has always struggled with comedy, and I really hoped this show would prove that they could do it if they really tried. Alas, proceedings were X-Factorised, complete with emotive music and feigned clashes between the contestants/comedians. All desperate attempts to make the show exciting, but even the News of the World wouldn’t have jumped on the episode’s ‘hugging scandal’ bandwagon. And the whole ‘it’s the toughest job in the world’ chat just fell flat. All I wanted was a bit of a laugh. Is that so wrong? Seemingly hearing my desperation, the stand-up bit finally arrived. They did forget one tiny, little, insignificant thing, though: the laughs.
The contestant’s performances varied from passable to dreadful. First up was anti-hugger Cole, making some choice jokes whose failure was blamed on the entirely female Scouse audience. No, they were just tripe. On next was… well, I don’t really know. We saw him come on, say hello, and were informed that he’d fared better, and then we moved onto the next contestant. A similar thing would happen with about half of the remaining contestants/comedians, and it became thoroughly exasperating. We’d seen all the build-up and heard comments from the contestants/comedians, the judges, the host, the audience, the hairdresser, the ducks, the statues… But we weren’t allowed to form our own opinion, as the only thing to base it on was how many Michelles they’d found.
The most notable highlight (comparatively speaking) was former model Ellie, whose first gig was only 18 months previously. While her set wasn’t exactly inspired, it was entertaining, and it would have undoubtedly come across better if we’d been allowed to see the whole thing, rather than just the beginning and the end.
And so the episode hobbled to its conclusion, with yet more X Factor coinages, including a bottom 2 where the contestants/com… no, just contestants, explained how they’d worked so hard… Enough already! Show Me the Funny isn’t so much scraping, as forming a hole in the barrel: it’s a comedy show without comedy, a talent show without talent. Admittedly, there was one laugh to be had in that a full minute was spent justifying how Alan Davies was qualified to judge stand-up comedians. Ha! They weren’t stand-up comedians!
Show Me the Funny continues Monday 9pm ITV1.
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