Comedy panel shows in 2010 (Part 1)

A brief round-up of comedy shows I've been enjoying so far this year includes the new David Mitchell fronted series, The Bubble, in which 3 celebrities (comedians) are put in a house and cut off from the internet, TV, newspapers, etc for a week, and then presented with recent news stories with the aim of spotting the fakes. I'm a big fan of Mitchell's comedy style, and he's great on Would I Lie To You? so I was interested in this show from the off, despite the strange, labour-intensive nature of the show's set-up. The show's makers mock up news reports and headlines among hard-to-believe-but-true news stories so that the panellists can score points, or rather make us laugh, because the game is never the point is it really? The guests have been mostly pretty good, the first week was a bit of a slow-burn as the guests hadn't seen the show before and were a little hesitant, but Frank Skinner was great as usual. I worried that with Mitchell as host he'd get little chance to let rip and make me laugh, but my worries were dispersed once he himself had settled into the role. Due to the cost in mocking up news stories, I wonder if the BBC will be able to afford a second series? We'll see.

The latest, 'G' series of QI has pretty much ended as far as I can tell, save for a couple of clip shows. This one has been badly treated by the BBC - left until the very end of 2009, despite being filmed early that year, and then seemingly shunted about the schedules - particularly QI Xl, the 15 minute longer version that I prefer to watch - they should have just left it on BBC2 where it began if BBC1 was too packed with other shows. The show itself has been as informative and entertaining as ever, and I hope the 'H' series is allowed to go out uninterrupted, closer to the recording date. 

Finally, not a panel show, but all comedy is Harry Hill's TV Burp, that's off the air now until the autumn! Well, apart from the Best of TV Burp compilations, which are just as funny how ever many times you watch them. I particularly the running segment about The K Factor, where the public submitted knitted items/characters to be judged by Knitted Simon Cowell and Knitted Cheryl Coles [sic], that culminated in the not live final with Peter the Duck crowned winner. The recurring Pineapple Dance Studios bit never got old either, with the extremely Camp dancer strutting about week after week - Harry didn't even need to make a joke about it, just let the clips play. There's nothing quite like TV Burp on TV, and when Harry's on form it's the best comedy show around, and (I've said it before) the only thing worth tuning into ITV1 for.