Whats Goin' On With Johnny Vaughan? (Johnny Vaughan Tonight)

Member Name: rosie.s

Product:	Johnny Vaughan Tonight
Date:	05/02/02 (296 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Guests usually quite entertaining., Johnny has his moments.

Disadvantages: 'Orrible set, "Commercial breaks"

I used to make a point of watching the Big Breakfast every morning, just to see Johnny Vaughan. How refreshing he was, in contrast to Eamonn Holmes comatose on the sofa on ITV or the inane chat peppering most radio breakfast shows. Johnny managed to be witty, edgy and intelligent, never vacuous. Not bad for a Chelsea supporter… And then he left, signed a great big juicy contract with the BBC and wrote and recorded the ill-received sitcom ‘Orrible. It did have it’s moments but they were so far apart, whole episodes could go by without raising a smirk.

And now he’s back with a thrice-weekly chat show which is on BBC Choice at 9pm and repeated later on BBC1. Is it any good? Well, seeing the opening shots doesn’t inspire confidence. The set is minging, with purply colours left over from Terry Wogans chat show days in the 80s. In the background is a shelf, with some atrocious looking pot/vase/ornament/pottery just behind Johnny’s head, vying for attention. It’s distracting, not at all aesthetically pleasing, and it has to go. In the unlikely event that a soon-to-be guest is reading this, do me a favour and smash the damn thing – gwoan, y’know you want to.

But worst of all is that he is sitting behind a desk. What is it with chat show hosts and their desks? The most pointless prop, Clive Anderson, Jonathan Ross, David Letterman, even that Scottish bloke who used to be on Channel 5 – yes, Jack Docherty, that’s his name, all rely on a desk, leaving the guests to perch awkwardly on a chair at the side. It’s a tired old format, and here’s Johnny doing exactly the same thing. I thought he might go for a more relaxed approach, but no. At least Chris Evans turned his desk sideways to the camera, and let the guests write over it. When Vic and Bob bounced onto Johnny show a couple of weeks ago they initially stayed standing up and Johnny suggested they do chat shows first standing int
erview. Well, it would be a start!

The first part of the show is devoted to Johnny Vaughan’s take on the news and current affairs. It’s scripted y’know and therefore not at all funny – Johnny is at his best when he’s freestyle, on a rant that just keeps going off at tangents, rolling along, gathering laughs. But this is tedious, and predictable.

Ah, well, after an utterly pointless “commercial break” (this is BBC remember, more smirk-free sketch type things, I’m sorry if it’s a bit vague but I’m usually in the kitchen pouring a large glass of wine at this point), it does pick up when the guests come on.

Johnny can relax a bit and away from the script, he’s much funnier. His guests, I suppose, are the usual load of celebs with a new film/album/book to plug but he also has had lesser known peeps on, like an explorer and the woman who sailed across the Atlantic on her own whose stories make a change from Planet Showbiz tales. He has two lots of guests (sometimes 2 actors come on at once if they’re promoting the same film for example). The first comes on to perch on one side of the desk then the other comes on for about ten minutes at the end but the first person gets to stay on stage and sometimes hogs the limelight a bit. Bob Mortimer and Vic Reeves were very funny of course – in order to celebrate the Queens Jubilee, Bob suggested we bring back mandarin flavour Ski yoghurt. Anastasia proved she doesn’t only have a gob on her when she’s singing and Charles Kennedy, looking oddly shrunken, gamely sung along with Johnny at the end of the show.

Eddie Izzard was one of his first guests, some weeks back and he was very amusing and entertaining, as he usually is, but each time he was in the middle of an anecdote, Johnny would interject which was damn annoying. And it’s not just Eddie. Old Johnny just can’t keep schtum; he butts in on a
regular basis. Sometimes it works with him and his guest bouncing ideas off each other and feeding lines to one another but other times its just plain rude interruptions – where’s your manners boy? That said, he does ask some genuinely intelligent and interesting questions and most of his guests seem quite keen to talk to him, without the feeling he’s trying to send them up a la Frank Skinner.

If you don’t have BBC Choice then it’s on a bit late. Big Breakfast in the days of Johnny Vaughan was worth getting up early for but I’m not sure I want to stay up late for this. Then again, if I don’t watch it I might miss that pottery “thang” being smashed to smithereens by some DooYoo reading guest.

Summary: