First viewed : 11 July 1994
This long-running comedy show also began life on the old Radio Five. The format was very simple, a celebrity, usually a comedian but always someone loquacious, came in to talk about the things they hated most. Presenter Nick Hancock decided whether or not there was a good case for consigning the nomination to Room 101, named after the notorious torture room in Orwell's 1984. Hancock, never a favourite of mine, left after three seasons and was succeeded by Paul Merton who hosted it until it originally ended in 2007. In 2012, it returned with Frank Skinner as host and a revamped three celebrity format. It was announced just a few weeks ago that the programme was to be axed once again.
I dropped off somewhere around the millennium though I have occasionally tuned in since. The bits I recall are :
- Maureen Lipman tediously choosing one of her own sixties films. This isn't meant to be This Is Your Life, love
- Spike Millington ripping into Chris Evans ,"He's so untalented. All he can do is small talk"
- Ricky Gervais on Comic Relief "Dawn French and Robbie Coltrane telling me there's a world food shortage. Oh I wonder why that is ?" Note of course that Mr Gervais is not exactly a svelte figure himself.
- Danny Baker nominating pub food because he doesn't like families around when he's boozing with his mates
Hancock's (to me) tedious ABUism was thankfully absent in this show... my personal favourite ep was with Frank Skinner, as he put in Shakespeare for reasons I found myself agreeing with.
ReplyDeleteI tuned in and out of the Merton years, packing in not along after he fitted up the man in the pic above! The Johnny Vegas ep was particularly funny, though, and I enjoyed Will Self managing to completely rile Merton up the wrong way. I assume the latter took on some kind of "class warfare" approach that Self was totally not arsed about.
Never watched the more recent series, as I thought "why mess with a formula that worked?"