Wednesday 1 June 2016

405 It'll Be Alright On The Night


First  viewed :  Uncertain

I'm  not  sure  when  I  first  caught  an  episode  of  this occasional  but   perennial   series  which  has  been  running  since  1977.

The  format  is  extremely  simple ,  just  a  set  of  bloopers  and  TV  disasters  sourced  from   around  the  world  with  supposedly  humorous  links  from  a  studio  host. The  latter  factor  made it  challenging  for  me  to  watch  as  the  host  for  its  first  thirty  years  was  the  intensely   irritating  old  fart  Dennis  Norden,  with  his  stupid  clipboard,  who  was  as  funny  as  toothache.
Of  course  some  of  the  clips  were  hilarious  - seeing  Richard  Whiteley  with  the  ferret  hanging off  his  finger  raises  a  laugh  every  time   - but  many , consisting  of  some  unknown  US   regional  TV  host  corpsing  at  nothing  in  particular,  were  repetitive  and  dull.  This  was  not   ITV  at  its  best  and  could  be  said  to  encourage  short  attention-span  viewing.

The  shows  were  repeated  a  lot  so  unless  you  were  following  the  numbering  intently  - difficult  for  an  occasional  show  - you  often  ended  up  just  watching  the  same  set  of  clips again.

Norden  finally  packed  up  his  clipboard  in  2006  at  the  age  of  84 ( he's  still  alive  at  the  time  of  writing )  and  two  years  later  the  show  resumed  with  Griff  Rhys-Jones  in  his  place. Apparently  there's  another  one  due  this  Saturday.    
  

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