Russell, Dara, Hugh & Andy
I ended off my summary of UK TV shows last April with the shows I watched that are broadcast in Canada. I’d now like to move on to a few that are available only on the web.
First is Mock the Week, a current events panel show that pokes fun at current news stories from around the globe. Hosted by Dara O’Briain, with regular panelists Hugh Dennis, Andy Parsons and Russell Howard (who are joined by an assortment of guest panelists throughout the season), it is funny, funny stuff.
While your typical Canadian may find some of the European references obscure, it doesn’t take you long to get up to speed – Gordon Brown is a dour old git, Nicolas Sarkozy is an old git with a hot wife, Silvio Berlusconi is a relentless womanizer & Boris Johnson is…well…Boris Johnson. The world news and Royal Family stuff will all be as familiar to you as anything Rick Mercer does.
Longtime fans mourned the departure at the end of last season of Frankie Boyle, the hysterically funny Scot who’d been around from the beginning. However, his obsessive need to get the last laugh could get tiresome after a time, and the panel does seem more balanced now. Frankie’s autobiography, “My Shit Life So Far”, has just been released.
Anyway, the good news is that MTW is in current production, and that, for now, the BBC isn’t hauling the new episodes off Youtube the minute they’re posted. Here’s this week’s episode, aired Feb. 11.
D. J. Crossley’s Home on the Web 