Buzzcocks are back to scoring cheap points with even cheaper laughs: ROLAND WHITE reviews last night’s TV
Never Mind The Buzzcocks
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Spice Girls: How Girl Power Changed Britain
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The original version of Never Mind The Buzzcocks was quietly laid to rest by the BBC in 2014 — but just like an aged rocker the pop quiz has made an unexpected comeback.
The new version is on Sky Max, and goodness it’s noisy. Unless, of course, you are a registered young person in which case it’s probably brash, direct and full of energy.
The chairman is Greg Davies, who at the age of 53 is a bit on the old side to be hosting pop quizzes, but he’s rather good. He certainly doesn’t seem as pleased with himself as previous hosts Simon Amstell and Mark Lamarr.
Bake Off’s Noel Fielding is still one of the team captains, but Phill Jupitus has been replaced by the actress and writer Daisy May Cooper, who told a story about her cleaner and a packet of Quavers crisps. I haven’t been keeping up lately: is having a cleaner the new rock and roll?
The original version of Never Mind The Buzzcocks was quietly laid to rest by the BBC in 2014 — but just like an aged rocker the pop quiz has made an unexpected comeback. The new version is on Sky Max, and goodness it’s noisy. Pictured: Daisy May Cooper
Yesterday’s guests were Jade Thirlwall from the girl band Little Mix, singer Anne-Marie, and comedians Jamali Maddix and Nish Kumar.
Buzzcocks was famously rude about everybody; so rude that it almost amounted to bullying. Lemmy from Motorhead once walked out of the show, as did Preston from The Ordinary Boys when Simon Amstell read out amusing extracts from the auto-biography of his reality star wife, Chantelle Houghton.
Laughing cruelly at other people has rather gone out of fashion, yet nobody seems to have mentioned this to the Buzzcocks. They still did the Let’s Poke Fun At Old People round (please note: not its actual name) where the panel has to identify an ageing rocker from a line-up. One of last night’s line-ups featured Bucks Fizz, who are still fairly recognisable. Cheryl Baker has hardly changed a bit.
Buzzcocks is like being the only stranger at an uproarious party of chums who think themselves very entertaining and clever.
Actually, the funniest line didn’t come from any of the panellists, but when chairman Greg quoted Liam Gallagher: ‘I thought I had Covid seven times in the last few days. Then I realised the house was just hot.’
Michael Portillo donned a green, yellow and purple costume to go Morris dancing in Great British Railway Journeys (BBC4). Is colourfully trousered Michael the only Morris man who had to dress down?
The second episode of Spice Girls: How Girl Power Changed Britain (C4) looked at hostile media coverage and the break-up of the band. One moment, the girls were insisting they were all united and the papers had got it wrong, and the next Geri was in tears on stage and leaving the band.
The break-up proved so traumatic for the fans. Joe Stone, a commissioning editor at The Guardian, admitted that he took to his bed for two days. To be fair, he was only nine or ten at the time. He did go some way to explain just why so many people are traumatised by bad news from the pop world: ‘It felt like a betrayal of what the band meant. When you are nine years old and somebody tells you that friendship never ends, you want to believe that.’
The rest of the band managed perfectly well without Geri, but the bonds between the remaining four were loosening. They were beginning solo careers and getting boyfriends. Make-up lady Karin Darnell recalled: ‘I’d have to keep visiting pharmacies and buying pregnancy tests.’
But at their height there really did appear to be strength in numbers — together the Spices were able to deal with the pressure and the criticism. No wonder post-Spice Geri admitted at one point: ‘I feel really lonely.’
In the end, this was just another programme about the effect of fame and what it’s like to be constantly in the public eye. Frankly, it looks awful.
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