10 O’CLOCK LIVE: Wednesday 8th February, C4, 10pm
Whatâs the news?
Itâs not news, itâs cutting-edge satire, duh.
No, you pretentious braggart, your news?
Oh, 10 OâClock Live is back.
But Fiona and Huw never left. Theyâve been milking this Eurozone and Arab Spring material for months. Getting a bit dry now, reallyâ¦
No, not that old-school, âbalanced and accurate broadcastingâ? drivel on the Beeb. This is the satirical, alternative news offering on Channel 4. It was on last April, when viewing figures halved over the course of the series, and now, against all odds, itâs back.
I was wondering what had happened to that hour-long awkward Thursday nightly anticlimax.
Thatâs the one. Wait, you are still talking about telly?
Telly?
Never mind, please donât elaborate, basically what was widely considered by critics as an overhyped but rather mediocre show has been recomissioned, reduced from an hour to 45 minutes, moved from Thursday to Wednesday, but with the same premise â a live satirical news agenda – and presented by the same people.
Who?
Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell, Jimmy Carr and Lauren Laverne.
Again, who?
That angry, now actually quite famous bloke with a hard face from the Guardian; the slightly more adorable one off Peep Show; a comedian with Hitlerâs hairdo, and that edgy blonde DJ with squirrel-like features.
OK, got it. They are of course unfailingly hilarious and appeal to a switched-on, studenty audience of politically aware yoof – the intended demographic – right?
Right on.
So what went wrong last time?
Well all them yoof what you mentioned were busy earnestly watching Question Time on Thursday nights to stay loyal to Jimmy Carrâs inappropriate jokes about Tunisia as a blood-ridden holiday destination. Plus the clunky ad-libbed linking chat, the erratic camerawork, and interviews with politicians being too short, reducing them to unsophisticated soundbite battles.
The âLiveâ? part, then, in a nutshell.
Yep. The entire premise, if you will.
Seems doomed. How are they proposing to rescue it?
“After learning from the first series,â¦[we] will be making efforts to make the running order a little more flexibleâ¦It’s a slightly more bespoke approach to the news agenda that gives the show room to breathe, and hopefully room to be even funnierâ?, said someone keen at Channel 4.
Or is that a biting satirical take on vague PR guff?
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