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December 02, 2005
Audience Monkey
BBC Television Centre, White City
The other night I went to be a part of a television audience at the BBC. It was for a topical news show that airs on BBC4, the boring grown-up BBC channel. The show was "The Late Edition" and stars comedian Marcus Brigstocke. Its kind of like a British version of the daily show, only not as funny. One reason its not as funny is because Marcus takes the interviews semi-seriously. Another is because I haven't lived here long enough to get all of the jokes. [don't think I ever will to get this level of stuff] But its still very amusing, mostly because Marcus is a funny chap.
After enjoying the previous season several months ago, when I noticed that you could get tickets online to be in the audience I thought it would be fun. And it was. The show runs about 30 minutes but they do over an hour of material, because, as they put it, some of its shite. But most of it was still good, so it felt like you got a lot more show than normal. And Marcus made every effort to be funny, even when the cameras weren't rolling. One of the interviews was fairly serious, being with a British (well Irish actually) ex-military leader but the other was pretty damn hysterical, because it was with spoon bender Uri Geller. What a loon that guy is, he was going on about how he created world peace through mind control with the help of the CIA and Al Gore. Yeah. OK.
I also found it fascinating being in a TV studio. I guess my interest in broadcasting has never fully gotten out of my system. And BBC's television centre is a huge, aged, monolith of broadcasting. It was neat watching the actors improvise from the script on the teleprompter, watching the four cameras different angles, ogling at the array of lights hanging form the ceiling. And being part of the action, even though it was only to provide applause and a laugh track. Once, one of the actors messed up while doing one of those fake on-the-scene interviews, and of course everyone laughed even harder at the mess up. The actor, Steve Furst, jokingly chided us "audience monkeys" for laughing at his gaff, which of course only made everyone laugh even more. Now whenever I see him on Little Britain or in an Orange advert, I will momentarily remember my short time as an "audience monkey!"
I may even sign up to do it again before the series is over. White city, where the BBC studios are, isn't that far away, and it was a fun, free night out. I recommend it to anyone, go out and watch some telly!
Posted by shannon at December 2, 2005 09:40 PM