Stand Up & Deliver
Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance
Rating: 
Some very mundane activities become mesmerising on TV. Snooker is one. An afternoon watching two blokes potting balls in a sports arena might be bum-numbingly dull — but on telly it’s hypnotic and addictive.
Stand-up comedy is the opposite. It becomes so much smaller than life. Even the greats, the Billy Connollys and Peter Kays, are shrunken.
When I watch stand-up on TV, I can never shake the feeling that I’m staring through a tiny window at a figure far away.
Jason Mansford has the unenviable task of coaching Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder to do a five-minute set
Television bosses know it, too, which is why stand-up is always scheduled late at night on BBC2. Even the most successful live acts don’t get aired at primetime.
That’s going to make the task of five willing celebs all the harder on Stand Up & Deliver (C4), one of the channel’s regular events to raise money for cancer research.
All five are experienced and confident performers. Several have a boisterous sense of humour. But as pro comic Jason Manford pointed out, that’s not enough — ‘otherwise every funny bloke in a pub would be able to play the O2’.
The era of Bob Monkhouse (above) or Tom O’Connor, when a comic could reel off 500 jokes from memory and be the headliner at every working men’s club, is long over
This is especially true of the stylised comedy fashionable today, a mixture of existential ranting and observation.
The era of Bob Monkhouse or Tom O’Connor, when a comic could reel off 500 jokes from memory and be the headliner at every working men’s club, is long over.
Jason has the unenviable task of coaching Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder to do a five-minute set.
Shaun, a man whose brain has been pickled in alcohol and drugs, can’t remember whole sentences, never mind comedy routines.
He blames ADHD, though I think he might mean MDMA.
Actor and full-time virtue signaller Nick Helm is mentoring Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the former Tory party chairman.
He let everyone know how much this pained his socialist soul — though Warsi is, of course, from a working class home.
Posh Nick’s middle name is Tristan, according to Companies House, where he is listed as a business director.
He claims she’s the first person he ever met who is ‘overtly Tory’. Since he grew up in St Albans, Herts, I wonder about that.
The comic with the toughest job is Judi Love, who is tutoring Love Island’s Curtis Pritchard. Curtis suffers from the worst trait a comedian can have — laughing at his own jokes. More terrible still, he does it before he tells them.
Judi has low expectations. She’ll count it a success if Curtis can make the crowd giggle once in five minutes. I think she’s setting her sights too high.
My sights were too high when I promised yesterday to supply an explanation of the rules for Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance (BBC1). It can’t be done.
One contestant, Lyndsey, asked for clarification, quite reasonably trying to work out if one wrong answer would invalidate all her previous correct replies. Instead of explaining, Gordon simply mocked her.
This show is ludicrously over-complicated. Changes are introduced as players progress, with extra lifelines materialising after every three questions.
My sights were too high when I promised yesterday to supply an explanation of the rules for Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance (BBC1). It can’t be done
And there is interminable fussing about where to balance tokens on the board, though the camera angles and rapid editing make it impossible for viewers to judge what might make the whole contraption tip over.
Gordon keeps urging contestants to hurry up. If it’s boring for him, it’s worse for us.
Bizarrely, though the rules are unfathomable, the quiz is insultingly easy: Name three U.S. presidents, landlords of the Queen Vic or Top 40 Abba hits. The show’s a flop in every way.
Bold critique of the night: Writer Jed Mercurio spent ten minutes on Inside Culture (BBC2) fuming that senior coppers don’t like his police corruption drama Line Of Duty. Then Mary Beard told him she watched Bodyguard and ‘didn’t really get it’. Yikes, that’s brave