Hollywood bigshot Samuel L. Jackson was the first guest. Sam's quality control is very low, so it was no surprise they managed to book him. Topics touched upon included golf, the fact he's now the highest-grossing actor, Snakes On A Plane (with a clip!), losing at the Oscars with Pulp Fiction, etc. I've heard it all before, particularly the Snakes On A Plane anecdotes, and Alan Carr looked desperate when he made a tired joke about a sequel to Snakes On A Plane. What's that: Snakes On A TRAIN, you say, Alan? Ha, ha! That may have been funny a few years ago. He also asked the single most boring movie-related question in existence: what's it like working with CGI? Ugh. If I hear any more stories about tennis balls on sticks, using your imagination, or greenscreen, my brain will explode. Is there anyone left who doesn't know the in's and out's of modern FX? There are Peruvian mountain farmers who have a working knowledge of chromokeying.
Next up was nutty singer Katie Perry dressed as a giant bank-note, with the stolen face of Zooey Deschanel. To be fair, she was easily the best guest of the night. She's eccentric and vociferous, which is just what you want. The chat flowed a bit easier with Alan, but I can't remember a single word of it. Alan accidentally opened a wound between Katie and her ex-boyfriend, but he didn't manage to drag anything out of her once she clammed up over it. Sadly, her career's too young for her to have any interesting showbiz stories, beyond relating the craziness of her meteoric rise to stardom. She managed to pull off the Cleopatra-dressed-as-a-dollar-bill look, so that earned some respect.
The final guest was Ivana Trump, but I'll confess that I had no interesting in hearing what she had to say, so I'd changed the channel by then. Was she good? Did the chat revolve around money, her husband Donald, and having a silly surname?
So, this was another dud for me. Like all chat-shows, Chatty Man will lure me into watching if the guests appearing that week are people I like, but I won't be watching for Alan Carr himself. I like him, and his personality would have you assume he'll be a fun, gossiping laugh and make the guests feel relaxed enough to let down their guard, but he's surprisingly all at sea here -- asking obvious questions that have been asked thousands of times before, inbetween grasping for jokes he's prepared in advance (like the Pulp Fiction soundtrack playing at a dinner party gag, which Samuel L. butted in and ruined the timing of.)
21 June 2009
Channel 4, 10pm
