Well yes the Wheel of News is one place where two of the guests get to actually do a very short piece of stand-up. However, for the other 25 or so minutes of the show stand-ups aren't in their natural place.

Comedians who generally focus on current events or politics normally are probably best suited to Mock The Week, which is probably why Andy Parsons has been a regular for so long.

Acaster AGAIN?!?! Twice in 14 days?? FFS.......

I presumed it was an in-joke because it's pre-decided what topics the standups are going to do depending on what jokes/routines they have tucked up their sleeves.

It's not like Milton Jones, Gary Delany or Stewart Francis stick to the topic when they're doing their one liners. 50% possibly are on topic. The rest are tenious at best.

Possibly the poorest edition of MTW I've seen and I've seen them ALL! We even got repeated gags in SWLTS - The "This time it's personnel" and Dennis' Strepsils voiceover joke.

They really need to up their game and for the love of God, no more ACASTER!

Can't stand Gary Delaney or Sara Pascoe, so that was definitely a bad episode for me.

I much prefer the repeats on Dave these days!

I thought it was a good episode - Dara and his Greek dancing was hilarious, as were the football mascots doing a minute's silence!

Obviously a comedian repeating a joke is unforgiveable. What were they thinking of?

As for James Acaster, I like his deadpan style. You may not like him, but the audience laughed at his jokes and the other comedians seem to appreciate him. He must be doing something right.

Same comic...same joke. Cause for celebration in your book is it?


Tumbleweed and a nervous silence doesn't make for good telly which the other comics there realise so they fake it. You're mistaking the audience laughing AT him for with him. I imagine most of it's overdubbed anyway as no rational person could find him amusing.

I reckon he thinks his stumbling, gauche delivery is somehow endearing or marks him out as different when all it does is expose the weak material he's offering up whilst ensuring a communal feeling of embarassment as the audience watches him dying slowly on-stage alongside his pitiful "jokes".

wow, that's a self-justifying conspiracy argument and a half. So it's not that they liked the joke, it's that ALL the other comedians were faking laughing at it and they dubbed a laughter track on later so hide the silent and bored audience? Does the guy have some clause in his contract that all of his jokes must be laughed at? Interesting none of the rest seem to...

And obviously there's no comedy at all in poking fun at a comedian whose one liner has just died on it's arse, and they've never ever done that in the past.

I do think there was maybe something edited out of it in fact, there seems to be quite a rough cut in there. I think the reaction is genuine, however it may be to something we the viewer didn't get to see.

In any case, humour is subjective. Some people find him funny, you don't (I don't particularly either, but I don't seem to have a problem with him to the extent you do) . Somebody else laughed at something you didn't like, are you that insecure you can't cope with that notion without having to justify it to yourself?

Similar SWLTS theme to make a joke about probably. Not something to celebrate but not something to care too much about either. The odd repeated joke in an improvised segment is hardly a crime. If he'd repeated the same joke in the same show it might be an issue.

You do realise that most of those 'spontaneous' jokes are jokes they've used before. How much new material do you think they have?


Well obviously you and your opinion must be right. How can I possibly argue with it? Especially as your theory of what actually happened during the recording conveniently supports it.

I quite like James Acaster. Clearly I'm 'no rational person'. Someone let me know who I'm supposed to find funny next time please to save me the embarrassment of getting it wrong.

Personally I thought it was a fine episode. Certainly not the worst ever. I don't mind Acaster either. Not the worst comedian they've had on the show (imo).

I fwd through Acasters Mexican food thing the other week, that said, it was the second viewing when I did that, that's a first for this program, so that's how amusing I find him.

I could just see Dara and the gang riffing on Strakers post now, then he'd know some laughing at.
The utter guff some people come out with in relation to something so minor as not finding a comedian funny.

Amen to that

I thought it was a good episode. James Acaster can be quite funny but just looked bad in comparison to Gary Delaney's one-liners, which were fantastic.

Sara Pascoe was obviously the token woman but really not funny at all. I like to see comediennes on these shows and I don't agree with all-male lineups, but for Pete's sake BBC get some decent comediennes rather than Sara Pascoe who tries far too hard. Her "Greek debt crisis is like a pub" spiel in particular felt very forced and cringe worthy.

Mock the Week simply hasn't been funny since Frankie Boyle left.

Unlike others, I don't mind James Acaster. He often says things that make me laugh, although I have no idea why everyone (especially Dara) found Robo Bongo Cuckoo Cock so funny. I don't get it...

But I'm getting seriously sick of Dara Ó Briain. All he does is take jokes too far, usually other people's jokes. And that thing with the Greek music last episode was just completely unfunny.


But that is the whole problem with BBC's token woman policy. There are not enough funny comediennes (or enough comediennes in general). And that's why it's a stupid policy. Like expecting a university to maintain gender parity on a computer science course when 80% of the applicants are men.

That whole Greek music thing was a waste of time. Not funny the first time and any subsequent repetitions of the gag just felt even more forced and boring.

Well, I only caught it on repeat and thought it was OK - not vintage, but OK. Reading some of the posts, why am I suddenly reminded of Waldorf and Statler on the Muppets?

Only when he was taking the trouble to be funny rather than falling back on the cheap and vulgar unfunny insults he relied on 90% of the time.

Do some of us reading this a favour, please no more mentions of Frankie Boyle.
Some of you might still be mourning his leaving, but many of us didn't even begin mourning.
If the program is really that poor, stop watching and commenting on threads, give yourself and us some peace.

More importantly it's F'in boring.

Oh if you think there are too many/unfunny women about, don't got near Radio 4.

Sandi Toksvig and Susan Calman are pretty funny, but the token woman in other panel shows usually is not.

I have to say I much prefer MTW now with just the two regular panellists. Don't miss Addison or Howard (even though I'm a fan of Russell Howard's Good News) and I certainly don't miss Frankie Boyle.

Personally I don't rate Susan Calman and while Sandi Toksvig can do a good job on certain programs I don't think she's the right person for Mock The Week and the same with other female comedians as well.

Holly Walsh was brilliant on Dictionary Corner for 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown a few weeks ago, but she's never been as good on Mock The Week.

I don't think Nina Conti has ever been on MTW but she would probably look out of place despite being capable of being really funny.

Well, it lost its edge when he left. There was nobody willing to take the risks that he did in really mocking celebrities.


The episodes seem to revolve much more around him more recently.


The tokenism is more sad when the guest breaks the atmosphere by not being able to join in jokes on the same level as the other pros. But Milton Jones gets condescending or 'worthy' laughter too. I'm not sure if they have to edit it in.