Gigglebox Weekly #32

Gigglebox Weekly With Ian Wolf

This week Ian Wolf knows what’s in the papers and watches the Premier Inn bloke.

Hacks

Written by Guy Jenkin (co-writer of Drop the Dead Donkey and Outnumbered), Hacks is a satirical comedy about the phone hacking scandal.

This comedy wasn’t as funny as it could have been for one simple reason: what happened in real life was much funnier and shocking than what happened in this programme. I know this to be true personally. During the actual phone hacking scandal I thought, “There’s no way that this can get any weirder.” Then I found out that one of my old university lecturers had been arrested on suspicion of phone hacking and, well, you get the point.

The thing with the phone hacking scandal is that it’s so ridiculous and stupid that it’s almost impossible to think how you can make it even funnier than it really was. For me, the funniest thing in the whole show was this world’s version of an enquiry in which the Murdoch-esque owner (played by Michael Kitchen) was attacked with silly string and then the attacker was nearly beaten to death by his owner’s wife (Eleanor Matsuura).

The One Lenny Henry

Before I start I should point out that I’ve never really been a huge fan of Lenny Henry, but I must admit that The One Lenny Henry wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. For me his stand-up was better than his sketches, particularly the material about film piracy and trying not to be funny when performing Othello.

However, most of the sketches were a bit dull, lacklustre in places and in several cases thought he was overshadowed by those alongside him; in particular Peter Serafinowicz and Omid Djalili.

On a final note, during the show Henry gave a short rant about obituaries, saying that when he dies his will probably read “Premier Inn Bloke Dies.” I’d just like to say: “Whose fault is that exactly, Lenny?”