Never Mind the Buzzcocks (Never Mind the Buzzcocks)

Member Name: SmilingBuddha

Product:	Never Mind the Buzzcocks
Date:	02/07/09 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great host, Some hilarious moments

Disadvantages: Brand of humour not for everybody

The basics: Never Mind the Buzzcocks is a light-hearted music based panel show which has been running since 1996. The show was originally hosted by Mark Lamarr but he quit after series 18 to work on other projects and is now currently hosted by Simon Amstell.

The host is positioned in the middle, with team captains Phil Jupitus and Bill Bailey positioned either side with their two respective guests each. The two teams then compete for points by answering questions, completing challenges... you know the drill.

Okay that out of the way, I find Simon Amstell whose very appearence causes me to giggle, devastatingly hilarious. For me, with him in the chair he is one of the main selling points of the show. During the show he often turns interviewer on a specific contestant usually first by asking them a normal question then following it up with an inappropriate (but hilarious) question or just taking the p*ss out of their answer. You can tell he does his research and he puts it to good use.

Alot of the humour is ripping into people and taking the p*ss, be it famous singers or even the contestants on the show. If that kind of stuff turns you off a programme, you probably won't enjoy this.

The two team captains are fairly similar in their humour. They are both jolly rather huggable men who can make quite funny comments and are generally very likable guys.

The banter isn't particularly intellectual and can often be quite simplistic or puerile. This might appeal to some, not so much to others. Some random stuff can happen which can be a laugh, such as Amstell randomly bringing out a live chicken.

There is a variety of rounds. Notably, the "Identity Parade" where the panel have to identify a "famous" person out of a line up and "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" in which each team is shown an object and has to guess how it caused an injury to a musician.

Compared to other panel shows (HIGNFY, Mock the Week) Never Mind the Buzzcocks is very light hearted and given it revolves around music, they almost never have a serious point to make or difficult material to tackle.

As the guests are often musicians and not comedians, they can sometimes be quite bland. Not that all musicians are boring, some are just clearly out of their depth. That said, they do find some real comedy gems occasionally, the Donny Tourrette episode had me in absolute hysterics.

They made a couple of highlight shows which were interspersed with clips of former contestants and team captains pretending Amstell had died (or something similar). The highlights were funny, the other bits not so much.

The show unfortunately isn't on BBC2 at the moment (a new season begins in September) but you can find repeats on Dave.

Summary: An entertaining music-based panel show