Interesting to remember how The Friday Night Project started life as another Jimmy Carr vehicle, with support from Sharon Horgan (now the writer/star of edgy sitcom Pulling), stand-up comedian Rob Rouse, and Lucy Montgomery (whose career highlight is still, tragically, Tittybangbang). That foursome were quickly ejected and replaced by rising stars Alan Carr (no relation to Jimmy) and Justin Lee Collins, who have subsequently made the show their own.
While I commend how Carr and Collins improved FNP through pure force of will, as the format remains relatively unchanged from its first run, something about FNP (now shunted to Sunday night with a necessary name-change) always leaves me cold after about 15 minutes. I've very rarely stuck it out for the full hour, have you?
I think I'm just bored by the studio-based entertainment show, which has barely progressed from where Chris Evans took it in the '90s (first as a gameshow hybrid in Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and then as a music/chat-show with TFI Friday). Sunday Night Project has an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach -- it's a gameshow, a hidden camera show, a sketch show, it has a musical guests and (bowing to its Saturday Night Live influence) a new guest presenter each week. It sounds like it should be riotous fun, but it just doesn't do any one thing particularly well. The whole is less than the sum of its parts.
The guest presenter thing has certainly sustained things (imagine if Carr and Collins were the regular hosts!), but it also means shows are inherently inconsistent. If it's being presented by someone you like, chances are you'll be more inclined to watch than if it's presented by Peter Andre and Katie Price. The fact is that great guests are hard to come by. In America, SNL gets around it by reducing the celebs to stooges and walk-ons in sketches, while often getting established comedians and SNL alumni involved anyway -- to give it the required punch. It also helps that SNL has a pedigree and tradition than can lure A-list Hollywood actors.
SNP makes its guest-hosts the sole focus -- for better or worse. It's a gamble, but seeing as SNP has the safety net of Carr and Collins keeping everything on-track as "co-hosts", it means they're really just led by the nose. So any sense of danger evaporates anyway.
The emphasis on the guest-hosts also means the audience aren't used well. Alan Carr has people skills honed by years of stand-up, but he's become very acerbic and unkind since Celebrity Ding Dong. The audience's role on SNP is generally restricted to a Q&A where they can "ask anything" to the celebs (yeah, right -- Andre just happened to have a Michael Jackson-style hat with him?) and grabbing money off a Z-list celeb wearing a "coat of cash" (Eurovision flop Andy Abraham last night -- but usually a Big Brother evictee.)
SNP should take a leaf from Ant & Dec, whose Saturday Night Takeaway (while flawed in other ways) at least realizes the audience are more entertaining than defensive, agenda-fuelled celebs. Ant & Dec use their celebs to ridicule, amuse and entertain us -- whereas SNP treats its celebs as deities for us to be impressed by. And are we supposed to be amazed that Peter Andre can read an autocue and has memorized a few links to ad breaks? Everything of any merit on SNP is pre-recorded -- last week's Big Brother special had its highlight in the opening Muppet Show parody. Some of the candid camera stunts are also pretty good.
But of course, success does boil down to who's guesting. Like Have I Got News For You, it has its disastrous Anne Widdecombes, but there are hilarious Boris Johnsons along the way. It's just a shame I can decide whether or not to watch SNP by seeing who's that week's guest in the Radio Times. It really is like watching the same show every week, with a different face in the hot-seat.
Now it's moved to Sundays @10pm, to prevent it being consumed by Friday's Big Brother eviction nights, which is fair enough. But without a stomach full of Friday night alcohol, its flaws are even more evident -- and it psychologically signals the end of the weekend. What a downer. Hopefully the show will return to Fridays once Big Brother finishes, although I hope this scheduling means they rethink how to use their celebs and, most importantly, the audience.
8 June 2008
Channel 4, 10.00 pm
