Quite right.. ..what's he thinking?

It's impossible to satirise those shows. Why would he bother?

Plus there's something grotesque about TV stars who get paid fortunes to do this stuff getting paid even more money to say that they don't really mean it?

Am sky+'ing it whilst the rest of the family enjoy X Factor. Was looking forward to it as well.

fall out badly with Simon Cowell? Maybe it's their way of having a dig at him?

I expect they didn't hand the money back, though.

'utter' and 'bollocks' will suffice, methinks...

last night I spent the whole evening watching the genius that is Phoenix Nights.

I dunno, there's a fairly subtle ridiculousness to it. I reckon the channel 4 audience are discerning enough to see the satire in it...especially now Peter Kay's character has started singing really terribly and the judges are loving it (Waterman : 'as good as Sonia'!)

It's. Not. Funny.

'Born Free...Free Nelson Mandela...ela...ela...Umbrella'

That's funny! It's as funny as the bit in Phoenix Nights with the fake QVC....

C'est La Vie is fine with me.

Lost without the script input of Dave Spikey and the guy who played Ray Vonn.

Oh crapping hell. Now McCartney's joined in!

Edit. And the Kaiser Chiefs singer. What the deuce is going on here?

...is the amount of money they've thrown at it.

They don't linger on anything for more than a few seconds because they know IT'S. NOT. FUNNY.

...bet you never thought you'd see Macca playing the Home and Away theme!?

Cripes

that was Max and Paddy I figured PK could never better himself, so I am not watching it.

and could take no more. I agree with the above comment; kind of a waste of time trying to poke fun at these asinine TV shows - *especially* now, six (or whatever) years in.

The worst of it was that in the few minutes I gave it, what I saw wasn't even nearly as funny as the real (1) thing, anyway.

------

(1) I know the postmodernists among you will seize the chance to pick me up on that "real" comment; reat assured I've consigned myself to a short trip to Baudrillardian hell - see you in two weeks.

I been laughing a number of times, it isn't the most leftfield topics, but have you seen any of BBC3 comedies lately Massive, the wrong door, terrible. I think it suffers from the channel four curse of stretching things over 2 hours when there's only 40 mins of material.

On the other side the Stephen Fry USA doc was extremely slight, he might as well as flown over things moved so quickly.

There he was thinking he’d chalked up the biggest howler of all time. Turns out it wasn’t even the biggest howler of the weekend.

p.s. Waterman getting a cheap laugh by having a pop at one of his own acts, Sonia. What a shitehawk. There are plenty of worse singers than Sonia. Kylie Bloody Minogue for a start. And Madonna. This show was woeful in so many ways. Doesn’t do things by halves does he, Peter Kay. Including the jumping of the shark.

...OK it's not the funniest thing I've ever seen. Phoenix Nights is 10 times funnier. But no-one else is trying to pop the bubble of the ridiculousness of the X-Factor Strictly Come Dancing Oliver Sound Of Music On Ice type shows. I'm not a fan of any of those shows but I've enjoyed seeing someone take a rise out them tonight. Who knows - Peter Kay is populist enough to maybe drag some of the usual x-factor fans across to maybe see how daft the whole thing is?

(And Cat Deeley just going 'f*cking shut up' was funny!)

Rich

Funniest thing I've seen The Krankies. Never make a series though so I will have to be content with the next X Factor auditions.

... and very well put-together, but it was

1) way too long (would a spoof of "Ben Hur" have to last 3 hours?)
2) way too late in the reality show cycle to have any satirical currency,
3) just not funny enough - though I had a smile on my face the whole time, there were very few belly laughs to be had, and
4) this was Peter Kay's first new material in 4 (!) years and that was always going to ratchet the expectations far too high to ever be met.

I actually enjoyed it a lot, but it was definitely a one-joke set-up where the joy was in the execution, and many viewers will have gotten all they needed after 10 minutes...

There are some good gags in there. 2 up 2 down had me snorting lemonade down my nose.
2 problems:
It was too long (though a 5 minute sketch couldn't have done the subject justice).
These programmes are so extreme that they're difficult to satirise. R Wayne's grannie was a decent dig, but cannot match the bad taste of the original - http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/pity-satirists

Well the first 30 minutes. It was ok. Quite liked the attention to detail but thought the celeb panel let it down a little - Pete Waterman came across as a knob.

It was too long so we decided we would watch it in 30 minute chunks.

Have seen worse and full marks for trying to do something a bit different, half marks for the output.

For me it began after reading his shockingly poor autobiography. I'd always liked him up to that point but he comes across really badly. He constantly harps on about being an ordinary lad from an ordinary working class family and it just gets on your nerves. He describes how he only lasted a couple of nights at university because he was homesick and missed his "mam's" cooking. He was only in Liverpool.

There's no real mention of any friends and the anecdotes mainly seem to concern petty pilfering from employers. And to cap it all, it finishes before he even becomes famous, so presumably we'll all have to wait for the second installment.

Britain's Got The Pop Factor just didn't work. A few funny moments spread very thinly. Those programmes have gone beyond parody anyway. And how do Waterman, Fox and Nikki have the cheek to sit there taking the mickey out of shows they were very happy to appear on and appeared to be taking seriously at the time?

Phoenix Nights seems like a very long time ago.

that it was about 2-3 years too late...If he had done it then it might have been better, or even hit home harder, but it just seemed like shooting fish in a barrel.

I agree about Phoenix Nights. My mum watched it for the first time on Saturday nighta nd loved it...You can't ask for higher praise.

...Kay was only one of three writers of the sublime Phoenix Nights, none of whom were involved with the execrable Max & Paddy's Road to Nowhere, so perhaps you're all expecting too much of him - that said, he is funnier than Gervais...

Ok, maybe l'm sad, but l enjoyed the show. l admit it was too long but it was still well excecuted. Mind you, l also enjoyed Peter Kay's book.

I thought it was great. Funny too. Now you know how I feel when everyone raves on about how funny Harry Hill is and I'm sitting there scratching my head. Macca did Blankety Blank for gossakes...it was worth it just for that. And Two Up Two Down stroked the nose hairs of genius.

After Phoenix Nights, I figured Mr Kay was reasonably funny, and I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but this was simply dire. We watched it until the second ad break but simply could not stand any more.

Where was the humour? So X Factor likes a sob story, and the judges come out with more platitudes than Mr Platitude of Platitude Lane, Platitudeville. Well tell us something we don't know. "You did well on Mika night"? Drum'n'bass night? We could hardly contain our lack of laughter. On the basis of what we saw, Peter had enough material for a five-minute sketch saying the sort of things everybody said years ago when Simon Cowell first hit the talent show scene.

What's the point of ridiculing something that's already funny? The real behaviour of desperate freaks in the X Factor auditions is far funnier than anything a comedy writer could come up with.

This was the first thing PK has come up with in four years. Perhaps he should have given it another four, enough time to think up a single laugh-out-loud gag.

I have seen Phoenix Nights and am a fervent admirer. But I can enjoy that whilst at the same time appreciating Kay's X Factor spoof. I cling stubbornly to my view that it was perfectly-judged, full of lovely moments and positively pumping with 'heart'.

to 'show they've got a sense of humour about themselves' (ie happy to have their already-huge egos stoked further) then it's hardly going to be hard-hitting satire.
I setlled back to watch a bit and quickly turned it off. It reminded me of when the BBC newsreaders cross dress for Children in Need or whatever. Awful. A bucketful of cringe.

And its alright. It's a comedy show. Had a few laugh out load moments. Decent amount of chuckles and soem knowing stuff. Cat Deeley repeating the title of the show got a bit grating and still didn't like the celeb panel. Thought the Macca bit was funny. I think it may have worked better as a series of documentary's on the individuals and then a show at the end but that would probably repeat his earlier style.

is a big Richard Thomson fan he might be lurking around this parish...Perhaps we will see a "documentary" based on men of a certain age* in four years time.

* No offence to the women here, and people below the "certain age"...Sweeping generalisations are very in right now...

would have been to release it as a movie, along the lines of the jolly 70's sitcom spin-offs like On The Buses or Are You Being Served. Would fare well on DVD and be given away free in the Daily Mirror in 20 years time.

As predicted, the Geraldine single is in the shops this week with the Two Up Two Down track included.

I miss the Barron Knights.

Hilarious. Having a girl band called "Girl Band" was comic genius.... that was what?, oh oh dear.

... but it was far too long - the joke wore thin after a while. But it had its moments.

It was scarcely more ridiculous than 'The X Factor' itself, though, which gets more bizarre each year.

I am sure swathes of people watch the X factor whilst rolling on the floor clutching their sides as yet another Stepford gawp delivers the identikit script about it being his/her 'only dream', it being an 'amazing journey' and how devastated they will be if it all comes to an end (like there is any other outcome). Highlights of the present series include a girl being told that she couldn't play the Spanish card every week (or something like that) despite the fact that she is actually Spanish, the audience presumably not having ever heard of Spain and being completely unfamiliar with the culture would presumably not be able to take any overt display of that kind of thing. Also a Michael Jackson evening so that performers can display their adaptability (or some such twaddle) which is exactly the kind of cruise ship mentality which pervades the whole show really. 'Girlband' (which genius thought of that one) with their fish and chip legs and anodyne voices were a brilliant concept. Surely a great career on the pub & club circuit awaits...