Comments on: Mock The Week mocks the viewers and anyone who pays to see its performers do stand-up gigs

By: Martyn

Martyn — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:33:56 +0000

World’s worst is *relatively* easy when you’re on the spot. I say relatively, it’s still hard and most people can’t do it, but compared to some games (and yes, alphabet is incredibly difficult especially if your partner doesn’t know to think a few steps ahead to help you get the tricky letters) it’s easy to pop off a good one liner, then sit back for 20 seconds while your teammates pop out a few…

By: Craig Grannell

Craig Grannell — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 13:45:55 +0000

Francis did a good gig when we saw him. Quick and interesting and fun. Jones… Well, my wife utterly despised him, because he picked on her and one other person throughout. The sad thing was he’d have been reasonably funny, but it seems he lacks experience in dealing with a crowd. (Quick tip for comics: if someone tells you to leave them alone, leave them alone and don’t make stupid ‘ooooh’ faces.)

As for the planning, I realise all the other panel shows do this to some extent (although QI claims to mostly show questions in similar subject areas rather than the actual questions), but MTW just seems too canned all of the time these days. Only Ó Briain and Mitchell seem able to reply with off-the-cuff remarks regularly—everyone else needs their ‘script’.

And, yeah, I know improv’s hard. Hell, I have a time when I’m doing podcasts and not even trying to be funny! But WLIIA really sorted the wheat from the chaff, and was a much funnier show than MTW has ever been. (Interesting that MTW’s most successful round, the ‘scenes’ one, is essentially the same as the ‘world’s worst’ one from WLIIA, which was always pretty great.)

By: Mike Landers

Mike Landers — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:43:21 +0000

Francis is one-liner God. Although the bit I found of him on MTW was lifted directly from his live act. The format forces the comics to do so, because you need to have a bang-bang, guaranteed style and that forces the comics to practically shout over each other.

Boyle had a podcast where he was trying out material for MTW. In the same way as they get the questions in advance for Fighting Talk or HIGNFY.

The fact that the regulars are all contracted to the production company for their live gigs is not a coincidence at all…

Improv is hard. It takes a lot of practice and it doesn’t always work. ComedySportz (http://comedysportz.co.uk/) is great fun and you can have a go yourself in one of their courses – which is even better. But yes, I miss WLIIA. Ryan Stiles was a god on that show.

By: Craig Grannell

Craig Grannell — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:44:42 +0000

We saw both punners live. Francis >>> Jones, frankly.

By: Merman

Merman — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:43:48 +0000

Dara and Russell are touring from March, presumably restricting the number of episodes of MTW they could commit to.

My favourite appearances on MTW recently have been by the “punners” – Canadian Stu Francis, and on this week Milton Jones – rather than “routine”-style performers.

Oh, and improv is hard, especially the “alphabet” sketch…