[Stooky Bill]

It was a lot better than last series, although that improved a it went on.

A shame one of the best bits - Richard Yewtree was so short, although I imagine it eats up material.

But what did really surprise me is that the reveal of the fake news stories was done right at the start. The thing that has provided so much publicity for the programme and has had so many people talking about it and they throw it away in the first 5 minutes. Crazy

---

The Lateish Show is coming back, it has already been confirmed there will be at least a Christmas special for 2023

The Last Leg is now the bread and butter business for Channel 4 on a Friday night along with Gogglebox - in the same way A Question of Sport and Have I Got News For You are bread and butter business for Friday night BBC One - you can argue that all of these shows have declined in content, but for both channels, they are doing reasonably well and are stable fixtures which is what some viewers want in their lives these days

Yes and The Last Leg has achieved, accidently, what Channel 4 and others have been trying to do for a couple of decades - a live topical comedy show. Every other attempt has failed to last - The 11 o Clock Show and 10 o Clock Live being two notable attempts.

Personally I still enjoy it, it's a really good summary of the week, bit silly, always entertaining

[JMT1985]

The "Richard Yewtree" bit which of course is Joe's mocking GB News, was shorter I felt due to Danny Dyer really stringing his bit out.

He was very slow reading the autocue, Joe was just sitting there waiting for him to finish his lines which made it felt shorter as due to Danny being slow, they didn't have time to do other stories in it.

This is a live show, and they are constrained by time.

[Andrew]

There had also been not one but two C bombs dropped by that point

[dvboy]

The "Richard Yewtree" bit which of course is Joe's mocking GB News, was shorter I felt due to Danny Dyer really stringing his bit out.

He was very slow reading the autocue, Joe was just sitting there waiting for him to finish his lines which made it felt shorter as due to Danny being slow, they didn't have time to do other stories in it.

This is a live show, and they are constrained by time.

Joe did a practice run of the Yewtree segment at his '...and Friends' show on Wednesday at the Glee club in Birmingham (www.glee.co.uk ), with a random audience member in Danny Dyer's place. It seemed to take longer but I don't think they cut anything out. Almost all of the one-liner jokes Joe did in the show were ones he'd tried out on Wednesday.

Joe Lycett - Live Comedy at The Glee Club
Joe Lycett is an award-winning comedian, writer & television host. One of th…
  Source: www.glee.co.uk

They probably could have done things in a different order last night to make it work better, but I think the fact that the show isn't slick in production is a big part of what makes it entertaining.

[Earlie37]

Will be interesting to see what they do next week. Clearly, they were trying some segments which just fell flat on the night (e.g. the Andrew Neil mind reading segment and the Natalie Cassidy call). I was also surprised the Yewtree bit came back as although it's quite funny, the joke is now obvious and unlikely to get as much social media attention as it did last year. That's why I thought the OB worked better - yes, the same principle as the shop was there but because it's going to be a different location, celebrity and scenario each week, it will break up the repetitive nature of the joke. i.e. Slightly tweaking something that worked well last year into a fresh approach. Was also pleased that they gave up on Katherine Ryan on the barge joke this time too as that was starting to get very tired by the end of the last series. I do wonder whether they need to reduce it down to two guests though, especially if they will have one in an OB each week too. I do think Danny and Kate were enough last night and had just got into their flow before another was then dragged in. By the time Big Zuu came on, it was feeling a bit too crowded... especially when trying to cram in the various segments too.

I also agree that it would've been better to reveal the fake news stories as the show went on - showing two before an ad break and getting you to guess which was the fake one and which was real would've been a good way to splatter these throughout the show. Felt like it was all a bit shoved in too quickly at the start so you didn't have time to take in each of the joke stories properly or unpick how widely they were picked up in the media as being real stories. A strange editorial choice putting them all within the first five minutes, I felt.

Was also interesting that Chris Sawyer (Greg James' former producer) is now involved. Everyone assumed he'd been pinched by Capital to work on Jordan North's new breakfast show.

[all new phil]

Agree with pretty much everything that’s been said. The fake stories bit felt a bit flat given the build-up. Richard Yewtree needed probably one more story. I think overall it needs some slightly longer / better planned features like what made Got Your Back work so well. I know the amateur feel of it is part of the charm but there’s just a little too much that’s falling flat, and the slicker Got Your Back format just flowed better and was a better watch because of it.

[JMT1985]

Remember, all of these types of shows will learn lessons and improve - this is just the second series, and if Channel 4 have the balls, they will keep it on air - maybe instead of airing just one series a year along with a Christmas special, they should give it a longer run, ensuring it has time to breathe and fix issues which you can't really do in 8 episodes in a year.

[Andrew]

Agree with pretty much everything that’s been said. The fake stories bit felt a bit flat given the build-up. Richard Yewtree needed probably one more story. I think overall it needs some slightly longer / better planned features like what made Got Your Back work so well. I know the amateur feel of it is part of the charm but there’s just a little too much that’s falling flat, and the slicker Got Your Back format just flowed better and was a better watch because of it.

The fake stories bit probably felt a bit flat because it’d been built up bigger than the actual reveal was

The biggest stories that Joe was in the running to have been behind, he wasn’t

[M@@]

My impressions of Friday’s show was that it was overproduced and too time pressured (similarly to many programmes on TV these days). Thinking back to The Big Breakfast and TFI Friday, they were live and anarchic, but the flow was much more natural and comfortable. The presenters had the freedom to chatter, go off topic, go off on a tangent - actually be anarchic. Joe’s got the capacity to replicate this, but I’m not sure he’s being given enough freedom to do so. Fewer bits and less pressure on timings would, I think, work better.

[Stooky Bill]

Was also interesting that Chris Sawyer (Greg James' former producer) is now involved. Everyone assumed he'd been pinched by Capital to work on Jordan North's new breakfast show.

Aha so that explains this Twitter post
twitter.com