10 O'Clock Live

Or perhaps that title should be the problems with 10 O’ Clock Live. Because there is very little that is good about it.

In a sense, it seems to be a postmodern take on a current affairs programme. Rather than having reputable anchors and well-known journalists fronting the show, instead we have a collection of comedians poking fun at recent events. Which is the first problem with the show – it doesn’t have any comedians. Charlie Brooker writes scathing reviews and the occasional nasty comedy series, Lauren Laverne is a pop star turned presenter, David Mitchell is a comic actor and Jimmy Carr just isn’t, and never will, be funny. Tough task to make it a laugh riot with that line-up.

Which leads to the second problem – it isn’t funny. Arch self-awareness, faintly patronising presentations and mocking foreign leaders for having names that sound funny in the West is not funny. Unless, with regard to the last one, you happen to like Bernard Manning.

But of course, not everything in the news is actually meant to be funny. Making a joke about unrest in Tunisia is difficult to do successfully at the best of times; when people are dying, it may be best not to try to turn into a comedy sketch. There’s a reason why real news programmes tend to be po-faced when it comes to such stories – it is because laughing at them is not appropriate, and actually comes across as a completely crass. By all means poke fun at how those stories are reported by the mainstream media – something Brooker’s Newswipe does exceptionally well. But it is a very different think to poke fun at events where people are dying.

And the balance between having a comedy programme and having serious political debates also needs to be looked at. Take the debate headed up by Mitchell about banking bonuses – all serious debate is lost as Mitchell plays to the crowd, to get cheers for his points and boos for anyone who might want to defend some of those bonuses. And by the way, David, pointing to one banker who happens to agree that the taxpayer saved the whole system doesn’t make it a fact. Nor is it particularly edifying to see you ignoring the fact that Labour chose to do those bailouts; their complicity in the whole thing is a pretty big part of the whole story. And while we’re on the subject of Labour, you really need to think more about what that party is doing and has done than simply make sub-Guido quips about the state of Alan Johnson’s marriage. This isn't so much about balance as simply showing awareness of the world around you.

For some reason, Mitchell seems to have been set up as the show’s resident intellectual. I’ve no idea why; perhaps it’s because he plays a geek in Peepshow. Or because he writes a shrill, whiny column in The Guardian - a sort of sub Polly Toynbee effort, with laboured jokes in it. He’s certainly not very good as an intellectual, though. Witness his “debate” with David Willetts (who actually comes across very well). Willetts makes a strong case for raising the level of tuition fees. Sure, it’s a controversial case, but it has a ring of coherence to it – particularly when he points out that university education has never been free, but rather subsidised by the taxpayer who can often ill-afford someone else having three years studying at their expense. But Mitchell refuses to listen or respond to this point. He keeps on talking about free education until you want to reach into the TV and shake the little prig while shouting “BUT IT ISN’T FUCKING FREE! LISTEN, YOU STUPID COCKSTAIN!” Even later in the programme, when he’s summing up the debate, he seems to think he won simply because he believes university education was free, but isn’t anymore. Seriously, your average second year undergraduate has a better grasp of debating than this supposedly learned one shows.

Of course, I’ve only watched the first instalment, and things could have got radically better. But I doubt it somehow. This is lazy TV; predictable, tedious and – fatally, for a project like this one – not funny. The news may often be crap and insulting, but this sort of show falls if it decides to lower itself to the same standards. Which is precisely why 10 O’Clock Live just doesn’t work.