We were just watching the first half of That Antony Cotton Show. I couldn't sit there any longer. It was too awful. It may be early days but he's clearly not a natural.
ITV must stop thinking that having random people as talk show hosts is somehow going to pay off. Someone at ITV sat in their office thinking, 'Antony Cotton. Hmmm. He's a warm and friendly chatterbox gay whom old ladies love on Corrie as the non-threatening Sean. We've found our new Paul O'Grady!'
They haven't. Paul O'Grady is a seasoned stand-up who knows how to work a room, and can liven up the dullest conversations with some top ad libs. Antony Cotton cannot do this. He's clearly not that interested in other people. It's all meant to be about real people, not celebs, but you can see the panic if they get too near or get too familiar. He just can't cope. You can see he'd rather be camping it up with Shirley Bassey than asking what gift Doreen from Huntstanton has brought him.
Do programme makers learn nothing? Disastrous chat shows litter the telly universe like space junk. Davina was a nightmare, Charlotte Church doesn't listen to the answers, Richard Hammond didn't work and Bradley Walsh never made it out of the can. Sharon Osbourne did her 'I'm a real person just like you' schtick and viewers didn't buy it. So again, another disaster.
Now I read that Piers Morgan is lined up for his own show. This could be okay, but then again perhaps not.
Paul O'Grady is the king. Richard and Judy have their moments but are trained inquisitors. Parky used to be great. And that's kind of it.
Coming soon: The Roxanne Pallet Show.
7 comments:
I had a feeling it wouldn't work out well. These ac-tors just love it when they get a chance to 'show the public the REAL me outside the character', and when they do, you wish they hadn't. As the Man-About-Town pointed out once, actors make a living out of pretending to be other people; they don't have to be any good at being themselves.
Piers? I smelt deceit on his last You Can't Fire Me, I'm Famous, with Ann Robinson. The two share an agent, and there was no mention of her close profesional relationship at the Mirror with Robert Maxwell. So if his new chatshow is anything like that, it'll be pants. To bring back the chat show, we need interviewers whose imperative is to ask good questions that bring out the best in interviewees, not be in the limelight themselves, but with the rampant egos in showbiz - and journalism - that'll be a long time coming.
I hear that Cotton has an ego the size of York Minster. Just thought I'd drop that in.
The programme makers really don't learn. That's why we have ever more increasing numbers of reality TV. I rarely watch the TV these days.
I've heard that too Rich, and in fact I've seen it with my own eyes. And he wears a corset, I hear. So vain too.
He's the world's most awful man. At the last Inside Soap awards, when collecting an award for something or other, apropos of nothing he declared, "Champagne for our real friends, and real pain for our sham friends". I doubt he'll have even many of the latter should he continue on present form...
He's getting almost double Richard and Judy's audience, apparently.
I think it's just curiosity at the first ep. But I could be wrong.
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