TV Cream: the truth!
It has been noted herein that much-loved telly nostalgia website TV Cream is down, with a rather terse notice replacing its fetching homepage naming and shaming "an aggressive man" from the MCPS-PRS Alliance for intervening on behalf of their "megacorp clients". It went on: "I'm sorry if you mistook this for the vibrant sharing of culture etc. etc." Anyway, this was later replaced by the following testcard:



I contacted a Cream insider, who gave this official response:

Dear Andrew Collins Collective ... Thanks for taking TV Cream's case to the highest court in the land - Andrew's blog. Don't worry, it's all been a big fuss over not-too-much. After nine years of providing uncleared TV themes for download, TV Cream has been busted, and we hold our hands up. The themes have now been removed, but the site itself will go on.

So now you know.

Lifting the lid on Banter
Third recording of six for this, the second series of Radio 4's Banter, last night at RADA. Shows one and two we did back-to-back, in one evening, which proved a real slog, so doing just the one seemed like a luxury. Perhaps too much of a luxury, as it descended into anarchy. Hopefully an anarchy that was fun to witness for the audience, and an anarchy that can be edited into 27 minutes of entertaining radio by our intrepid producer, who spent much of the 90 minutes sobbing into my headphones. As chairperson, I have to keep order and say what each round is. This is not difficult - as Richard Herring (top, right) likes to say, a monkey could do it. However, last night it was difficult.

It's great recording in the little theatre at RADA, although because we're up on stage and most of the audience are below us, it does create a void that's not there at the Drill Hall or the Riverside (where we recorded series one of Banter, largely because it was really handy for our producer to get home from there). This means we have to work a bit harder to "reach" the audience. Because we can't afford a warm-up man, part of my job is to jolly the audience up a bit before I introduce the guests. This was a lot easier at the Riverside, even though I tended to make jokes about serial killers. You're just closer to the audience - it's easier to connect with them. At RADA, I've had more difficulty. This may be because I tried out some material (and I use that word loosely - I'm not a comedian) about killing tramps. I tried something else out last night, but it fell flat and I lost confidence and just brought on the guests. In other words, I did not do my job properly. I didn't warm them up.

On Banter we have a core of regular panelists: Richard Herring who's on every show (I don't know why), Russell Howard (bottom, right), Perrier Newcomer nominee 2006, who's on four out of the six shows, and Will Smith (bottom, left), Time Out Comedy Award winner 2004, who's only on two out of the six, due to a booking failure. These regulars are augmented by the likes of Sue Perkins, Chris Addison, Rob Deering, Lynn Ferguson, Arthur Smith and Jenny Eclair. This series, we have Barry Cryer booked, which is a thrill and a privilege. He's on tomorrow night's. Lee Mack, who I haven't seen enough of this year, was on last night's, along with Julia Morris, the brassy Australian who also happens to have a part in one episode of Not Going Out, as a brassy Australian (we wrote the part for her). So bonhomie was high in the dressing room beforehand. Comedians all know each other anyway, and like to share war stories backstage. I have only appeared at the Edinburgh Festival twice, but I have at least written some comedy, and I hope that's enough to command a little respect. I don't attempt to join in the war stories though, obviously, as I don't have any good ones. Backstage at Banter is characterised by Pret A Manger sandwiches and one conspicuous tub of Marks & Spencer soup, which I think I once asked for on the first series for a wheat-free alternative, and it's still there, on the rider. I hope somebody takes it home and eats it.

What went wrong last night - and when I say "went wrong", you'll hear the finished show go out in a few weeks' time and you won't know, due to the skill of our producer's editing - is that Lee relied on his quick wit to get laughs, and managed to get the audience onside almost immediately with some blue material. Now, it's traditional for radio comedy recordings to descend into unbroadcastable bawdiness - the live audience love it, because it's naughty, and because they know it won't go out on Radio 4 and is thus exclusive. However, last night, the scales were tipped and whole swathes of the recording were filthy. Funny, but filthy. Lots of laughs. Also, lots of exasperation from our producer in my headphones, which put me off a bit. I was actually sweating up there. Because of "the voices in my head", I was missing quite a bit of the banter, and this was dislocating. Now, you can either look upon this unruly, anarchic filth as top adult comedy the audience don't even have to pay for, or you can look upon it as "unusable". I prefer the former, but then I don't have to edit it together. Either way, it meant I lost control, which looks bad. I'm probably dwelling too much on it, but it is interesting how the whole show can come away from its moorings, even with strict rounds and quickfire rounds to keep it linear and ordered. By the time it got to "pickups", that is, retakes of individual lines that our producer needs to assist with his edit, I was actually getting tetchy that nobody would keep quiet when I asked them to, and the pickups took ages to get through. I was thinking of the audience, sitting there for the best part of 90 minutes, and yet, they seemed to lap up the naughtiness.

Either way, I came offstage relieved that it was over and rather battered. The finished programme will, inevitably, come out fine, even without Lee's recurring gags about venereal disease and Jimmy Savile being a paedophile, which of course he isn't. And Russell's lengthy paean to the illegal drug marijuana. And Richard's actually very carefully constructed routine about masturbation making you blind. If you were at the recording, you will have enjoyed these, which I always say are going on the DVD, as part of the extras, even though there isn't a DVD. (I know that.)

Comedy is a serious business. The fact remains, I love being around comedians. They are such impressive people. And I love being the host of Banter, which had a fantastic write-up in the new Radio Times from Jane Anderson. Most of the rest of the magazine is taken up with Not Going Out (oh, and a bit of Cracker). It's strange how both of these shows have fallen in the same week. For the record, Not Going Out starts on Friday October 6, BBC1, at 9.30, and Banter starts on Wednesday October 4, Radio 4, at 6.30. Hope you like them.