Gigglebox Weekly #25

Gigglebox Weekly With Ian Wolf

This week Ian Wolf talks about a dwarf in a trunk and Britain’s only sumo wrestler.

The Mr. and Mrs. Hotty Hott Hot Show

Fronted by sketch troupe Pappy’s, this E4 Comedy Lab pilot is an “inner beauty” contest in which the public take part in various odd challenges.

Having watched the pilot I would say that there will only ever be one Mr. or Mrs. Hotty Hott Hot as this, on the whole, is a poor show. For starters I doubt this kind of format is displaying the talents of Pappy’s at their full strength. You can’t help but think that they’re doing a panel show because E4 wouldn’t give them the budget to do a sketch show, as they already had two sketch pilots this year (Anna & Katy and Totally Tom).

Also, I foundthe constant singing in the show to be hugely annoying, and some of the rounds were a bit – well, let’s say “dodgy”. One of them involved finding a hunk in a trunk. The hunk in question was a dwarf. Now, is it me, or is the idea of finding a dwarf in a trunk for the purposes of entertainment slightly distasteful?

Out of the Comedy Lab pilots so far, this one has been the weakest.

Argumental

Dave have decided to revive their panel show Argumental, but not to revive any of the regulars who appeared in the first three series, with John Sergeant, Marcus Brigstocke and Rufus Hound being replaced with Sean Lock, Seann Walsh and Robert Webb.

The main question with this change is, “Has it worked?” Well, in terms of banter between host and panel, it does seem to be better. I think that having a comedian rather than a journalist in the chair is going to increase the laughs, simply because Lock is more used to having to improvise on the spot, as well as being used to the panel show format as a captain on 8 Out of 10 Cats.

However, I’ve never really been keen on Webb’s appearances on panel games. It doesn’t seem to be his kind of format, unlike his comedy partner David Mitchell. I also think Walsh is the stronger performer, but despite this Webb won the first episode in the series…

The main highlight of the debut episode was guest Jimmy Carr having to argue that, “There’s no place for women’s sport on television,” while standing next to Britain’s only professional sumo wrestler, which is a rather terrifying prospect. You were just waiting for her to faux-lash out at him, but instead it was Walsh who offered to fight her.

I thought it was an OK debut, but it needs a few more episodes to bed in.