We've All Got Exactly The Same Quiff, And It's Ludicrous.

[rionaleonhart]

There are only three episodes of 10 O'Clock Live left! I'm going to miss it when it finishes, even though it doesn't have nearly enough interaction between the presenters. It was very wobbly indeed when it started out, but I think it's really found its feet, and the past few episodes have been great.

The problem with 10 O'Clock Live is that it shouldn't be live. In theory, it means the presenters can react on-air to any major events that might occur, but on the occasion on which that did happen - the passing of the Libyan no-fly zone resolution - they couldn't really react, in part because it was live and therefore they didn't have time to gather proper information and in part because the presenters are given so little time to discuss things unscripted.

The reason the presenters don't have time for discussion is because Channel 4 want to limit the risk of something going wrong on live television as far as possible; they can't put themselves in the position of not knowing what their presenters are going to be doing, and they can't risk dead air, so the vast majority of 10 O'Clock Live consists of the presenters performing pre-written pieces. This is a waste of liveness, Channel 4! Either make more room for spontaneous discussion or turn the programme into 10 O'Clock Prerecorded, in which you can keep the things that work, edit out the things that don't and allow debates/fabulous shouting matches to run their course, rather than cutting them short before we get to see whether John Prescott (who has never looked better than he did on Thursday night) is going to punch that arsehole from News of the World.

(THAT ARSEHOLE FROM NEWS OF THE WORLD. 'On Tuesday [Sienna Miller]'s prancing around in front of a camera; why on Wednesday should she complain about it because she happens to get caught by a pap who's maybe listened in to her messages to see where she's gonna go?' THIS IS A VERBATIM QUOTE. If you're happy being in front of a camera on your own terms, what right do you have to complain when people listen in on your private conversations? I MEAN, THAT'S JUST UNREASONABLE. 'Privacy's a place where bad people do bad things.' Saying that hacking celebrities' answering machines is just equivalent to listening to your boyfriend's messages to find out what he's been up to, BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW THAT THAT'S ENTIRELY MORALLY SOUND. It was great to see Prescott, with the entire audience behind him, bearing down on News of the World Arsehole like a great big wave of righteousness.)

The other reason 10 O'Clock Live shouldn't be live: sometimes they'll get a very enthusiastic audience, which is unbearable because Brooker and Mitchell have no idea what to do when they're applauded in the middle of a piece. They just sit there, looking uncomfortable. IT'S LIVE, AUDIENCE; APPLAUDING SLOWS EVERYTHING DOWN. Although the presenters do seem to have become a bit better at handling unwanted applause in recent weeks.

(Another annoying thing about the audience: they don't laugh at funny things Lauren Laverne says, and then they crack up when Brooker rephrases them to clarify. I SEE YOU, AUDIENCE, REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE FEMALE PRESENTER CAN BE FUNNY. Part of 10 O'Clock Live's improvement can be attributed to the fact that she's now being allowed to do actual humorous segments, whereas before there was a sense of 'oh noooo, we can't give her jokes', presumably because the same material would be much better received delivered by another of the presenters because the audience are sexist idiots.)

Also, although this is just a personal reason, I find live television really uncomfortable to watch because of the constant threat that the presenters might seriously cock things up. This is a potential that might amuse me in other programmes, but when I like the presenters I just get very embarrassed on their behalf.

Although it does mean that Charlie Brooker occasionally interrupts political discussion to point out that a fly has just landed on his nose, which is rather delightful.


For those who don't watch 10 O'Clock Live, have a performance from a 1976 episode of Top of the Pops. It's pretty incredible. (On Mother's Day, my mum decided to have a 1970s-themed evening and we watched the entire episode containing the linked performance. I enjoyed the fact that, during another performance, the entire audience were standing completely still except for one girl dancing away in the background. Oh, seventies television.)

Finally, in news irrelevant to everyone but me, my tongue feels as if a family of Borrowers are trying to convert it into a bungalow. Ow ow ow ow ow.

Comments

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

Do I want to know what's happened to your tongue? Is there a deadly tongue disorder going around?

'On Tuesday [Sienna Miller]'s prancing around in front of a camera; why on Wednesday should she complain about it because she happens to get caught by a pap who's maybe listened in to her messages to see where she's gonna go?' THIS IS A VERBATIM QUOTE. If you're happy being in front of a camera on your own terms, what right do you have to complain when people listen in on your private conversations?

What the fuck is wrong with some people? Seriously? There is a difference between doing things with a person who is a willing participant, and doing things to a person against their will. The first is generally okay, and the second is generally not (with certain narrow exceptions, like shoving someone out of the street so they won't get hit by that oncoming car they didn't know about). That's a basic ethical principle that should really be learned by anyone who's going to interact with other people in any way. It's right up there with "Don't take anything and everything you like just because you want it" and "Don't hit people every time you're mad about something."

[rionaleonhart]

I want to know what's happened to my tongue. It's not quite as painful as it was yesterday, though, so with any luck I'm over the worst of it.

Every word that came out of that man's mouth was appalling nonsense. The audience ended up making pantomime booing noises. He tried to defend phone hacking by saying that the electorate had a right to know what the people they might be voting into power were up to; Mitchell pointed out that a) politicians' private lives were largely irrelevant, and b) that really wasn't a defence one could use when tapping into the phones of, say, actors.

(A classic News of the World front-page headline, incidentally: F1 BOSS HAS SICK NAZI ORGY WITH 5 HOOKERS. I don't know about you, but I think this sounds exactly the place to go for cracking investigative journalism.)

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

Hopefully, it'll blow over. The nurse at work generally goes with "See a doctor if it doesn't seem to be getting better, don't worry about it if it does", and she's the one who keeps worrying about me coming down with hemorrhagic dengue, even though I never have and they don't have that in this country, so she can hardly be accused of being insufficiently cautious.

Yeah, that's an incredibly transparent after-the-fact justification. Digging through the privacy of every famous person just in case some of the ones who are politicians are discussing anything relevant? Ick. I mean if you installed spy cameras in their bathrooms, there's a microscopic chance that you'd learn something relevant, too!

[rhosyndu.livejournal.com]

I thought the point of 10 o'clock live being live was so that any politicians coming on the show would be able to feel that what they said would go out unedited, so it wouldn't be a case of them being made to look stupid for comedy purposes -- by anyone other than themselves, of course. Hence they'd be more likely to agree to come on.

Is like Newsnight being live, or Question Time being recorded only so far in advance (couple of hours, I believe, though I do remember nights that's gone out live) so they can take out the swears and any majorly stupid questions.

I'm going to miss 10 o'clock live when it finishes too. Where else will I be able to get Brooker and Mitchell staring at each other and ignoring everyone else in the room?

[rionaleonhart]

Oh, I suppose that makes sense. I do tend to forget that people other than the presenters are a factor in this programme as well. IT'S NOT JUST A COMEDY SHOW, RIONA.

Where else will I be able to get Brooker and Mitchell staring at each other and ignoring everyone else in the room?

I love the moments when it's just Brooker and Mitchell in shot, chatting away. Well done, whoever decided that they should always sit next to each other at the discussiony bits. (You'll get Brooker ignoring everyone but Mitchell when the Wallace-Havers-Wadia-Brooker episode of Would I Lie to You? is broadcast, at least?)

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

I still suspect 10 O'Clock Live was masterminded by Jimmy Carr so he could finally use all the costumes from his dress-up box.

[ukcalico.livejournal.com]

Hee - I have warmed to Carr SO MUCH since getting a weekly dose of his evident dressing-up enthusiasm. :D

[fireholly.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD, PAN'S PEOPLE. MY FAVOURITE DANCE TROUPE OF ALL TIME. I love how they manage to make dancing to the newest and most amazing pop songs into seeing a class full of bored primary school children 'doing the actions' to a hymn.

I think they should revive TOTP, but cut out all the music video stuff and all of the live performances and just have some dance troupe - Diversity? would they be up for it? - doing zero-budget zero-prep dance routines to Britney Spears songs. I think that would be a hit. I would certainly watch it.

[ukcalico.livejournal.com]

I'm going to 10 o'clock live again next week - excited, although also slightly dreading being part of the sycophantic wall of noise that is the audience. I will laugh at Lauren though! What with loving her madly, and all.

(In the audience's defence: they are a bit drunk, and the tension of it being live affects them too, and they get coaxed to be louder at every ad break. True fact.)

Completely agree re: Prescott vs NOTWA (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/10-oclock-live/video/series-1/episode-12/phone-hacking). And apparently he got props for it afterwards (http://twitter.com/#!/laurenlaverne/status/56138702153457665). :)

[faeries-bite.livejournal.com]

I gave up on 10 O'Clock Live a long time ago. I watched the first few episodes, and if there's a really interesting interviewee/guest (Campbell, Farage, Hassan), I'll watch that section when it's on youtube. But I can't be bothered.

[justspaz.livejournal.com]

I agree with your positions on 10 O'Clock Live. The audience is HORRIBLE to Laverne and she is lovely and makes strange faces while talking facetiously and I understand perfectly the whole 'no one laughs at what the girl says but then when the guy says it, it is hilarious' because that was basically my comedy experience in High School. PEOPLE, STOP IT. WOMEN ARE HILARIOUS, FACT.

Also, I do like it being live however so we get gems like Jimmy's SAS skit.

But yeah, not only is the audience annoying, they're everywhere. Who designed that set?

ALSO, why haven't I a relevant icon? Slacking Sarah.

I think this comment wins for Most and Worst Use of Transitioning Phrases.

[rionaleonhart]

I get so frustrated when I look at reactions to 10 O'Clock Live and it's just person after person after person being rude about Lauren Laverne. She is doing a much better job than they're giving her credit for. (Although on the whole the response to her now is a lot more positive than it was at the beginning of the series, so that's good.)

Oh, yes, watching Carr struggle to read the autocue whilst slowly rotating away from it was a bit of a joy. (If I recall correctly, that was the episode with the worst audience so far, but they did win points from me for applauding his tremendous failure. And then lose them again for applauding everything else.)

[justspaz.livejournal.com]

I would be too, but through years of developing a political edge through the internet, I have learned to not read the comments on most things. It has saved me, probably, from pulling my hair out completely.

His strange joy during the scene made it perfect. And I feel the audience for 10 O'Clock Live can be compared to an audience of people at an orchestra performance, all clapping when the musicians end a movement, not realizing the piece will not be over for another 30 minutes. This comparison has become a bit lost.

[vampirespider.livejournal.com]

Word to all of this, but perhaps most importantly the stuff about the News of the World. They are everything wrong with journalism and the media and it makes me so angry that they're even trying to justify their nonsense. Right to privacy? WHY WOULD ANYONE THINK THAT WAS IMPORTANT?

[vampirespider.livejournal.com]

Actually, on re-reading, I've decided that it's also important to express my agreement with regards to Lauren Laverne, who is lovable and smart and actually funnier than Jimmy Carr on most shows. Stupid faily audience.

[roadtomanderlay.livejournal.com]

I was impressed at how that NOTW guy looked: rumpled suit, undone tie etc. It was like he was auditioning for the role of 'sleazy journalist.'

I also loved this episode because it had Johann Hari in it, who is the journalist I would most like to cuddle, even if he does get a bit shouty.

[twitchbell.livejournal.com]

I've warmed a lot to the series, but I think you're spot on about it working better not live as opposed to live. Lauren Laverne is pretty fine - wish she got more appreciation. And Prescott was brilliant. Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd write!