Charlie Brooker (You Have Been Watching) interview
This spring, award-winning journalist and TV presenter Charlie Brooker returns to Channel 4 with the second series of his irreverent quiz show about all things TV, You Have Been Watching.
Here, Charlie discusses the finer points of the show, including why we should all watch a naked Frankie Boyle, how nothing is funnier than people falling over, and why people who watch this series will automatically become richer. (Note to readers: He may, in fact, be lying).
The second series of You Have Been Watching is back this spring. Explain a bit about it to the uninitiated.
It’s sort of midway between a quiz and a conversation – which makes it sound really exciting – in which myself and some guests look at some things that have been on TV in the week before. We look at recent TV programmes and discuss them, highlighting the absurd, stupid, silly, the gleeful bits, and at some point in the evening, some points are awarded. But basically the programme’s much better than I’ve made it sound.
Are you going to make any changes to the format for this series, or is it a case of “If it ain’t broke…”?
I think we’re going to have a few more fast-paced bits. I don’t think it’ll be tonally different. There may be some bits where I’m taking the quiz element slightly more seriously. To a possibly ferocious, maybe even violent degree. That, and obviously every episode will be conducted in the nude.
I’m trying to think of any of your guests I’d like to see in the nude.
Most of them, surely? I’ve seen all of them, but then, they don’t realis I’ve got keys to their houses. But surely most of them? Frankie Boyle? I mean, who wouldn’t?
Hmm. Who have been the best guests you’ve had on the show? Who’s gone down really well, or really got it?
I’m bound to say that every guest is good, but I think that’s true. There have been some who were a surprise. There are always the ones you know are going to be good on a show like that - you know, like Frank Skinner or Frankie Boyle or David Mitchell – and then there are people who surprise you how good they are. Victoria Coren was really good – I know she was nervous before she did it, but then she was surprisingly feisty. She picked a fight with me. Josie Long also came into her own on the show. I wouldn’t like to single anyone out as being the best. We’ll do that at the end of the series in a thunderdome. All those questions will be settled then.
Having been a guest on other panel shows, how does it feel to present one? Is one job harder than the other?
I think actually hosting is easier in some ways, and in others is much harder. It’s good in that you’ve got a map as to what’s going to happen, and you’ve got someone in your ear telling you what’s going to happen. And it’s also difficult, in that you’ve got a map showing you what’s going to happen, and you’ve got someone in your ear telling you what’s going to happen. You’ve got someone talking in your ear, you’ve got all sorts of other things to concern yourself with, whereas if you’re a guest all you’ve got to do is sit there and chat. I think our show is less gaggy, for want of a better word, than other panel shows. It’s not just about making jokes in a slightly artificial environment. We are a bit more conversational. We’re hoping to have a fairly competitive but amusing chat, much like you might round almost any table in the country. In fact, I’ve just made the show redundant there. Just go and sit around any table in the country instead. We’re a slightly more expansive environment. There you go, that’s going to get people tuning in! “Oh, I must watch that slightly more expansive panel show.” Not that there’s a panel. I do have a desk, though. There’s something about having a desk that immediately makes you drunk with power.
How do you go about deciding what TV to feature on the show? Do you watch a phenomenal amount in the run up to the show?
No. I probably watch less telly than people think. But then the bits that I do watch I have to really concentrate on. We watch a lot of stuff, we’ve got researchers out looking at stuff, and we often stumble across things. And you’ll get tips from viewers, who say “Oh, you’ve got to have a look at this particular programme,” and so on. I think we’re keen to ramp up the viewer interaction, to some degree. Our mechanism for selecting what we’re going to concentrate on is pretty good, so you don’t have to watch too much middling stuff. Although, having said that, when the show’s on air, you end up watching so much bloody footage, you just want to claw your own eyes out. Screaming. Maybe we can make that part of the finale.
You talk about ramping up the viewer participation, so you still have the TV Club in this series?
Yes. We’ll still be asking viewers for their thoughts on what they’ve seen. But it’s also great to have viewers sending you a tip for something they’ve spotted. It’s a cheap way of getting extra researchers. People will send a tweet saying that they spotted someone falling over on News 24 that morning, and it’s often worth following up. So I think we may well be using the myriad eyes of the viewer. I’m not sure yet how that will work, though.
You can’t beat a bit of ‘people falling over’ can you. It’s still the height of comedy sophistication.
People falling over or saying stupid things or looking funny. Any of the above. If you get all three at once, then you’re basically home and dry, I would have thought. There were a lot of people falling over earlier on in the year with all the snow. It was a good excuse for news to segue into slapstick, which they don’t do often enough, I think.
Do you still enjoy watching TV, or is it a bit of a curse now?
It depends what it is, really. I still like to devour box sets of things. There are lots of programmes I really enjoy, like Mad Men. Everybody who’s seen it enjoys Mad Men. I’m not just a knee-jerk hating machine. There’s a new programme on ITV, Michael Winner’s Dining Stars. Basically, everyday members of the public cook a meal for Michael Winner to eat, he turns up at their house, they bow and scrape and feed him for free, and then he slags off their cooking and everyone gets upset. Literally, there was a scene in the first episode where everyone in the room was in tears. But I found it mesmerising, I really enjoyed it. I like Coach Trip as well, I quite like the early morning property shows, I can’t get enough of them. I’m not some sort of aesthete, some snooty elitist who sits there saying “I won’t watch anything except The Wire.” A lot of TV is trashy and silly, as is life.
If you’re watching something for your column or TV show, do you quite often hope it will be awful, on the basis that bad shows have more comic potential?
I wouldn’t hope it would be awful any more than you would wish death upon a skier. Often there can be programmes that are really good but have absurdist elements. You could take Mad Men and talk about that and be very funny about it, but it’s also a really good show. There are all sorts of absurd things about it. The worst sort of show is something that’s neither brilliant nor bad, but just okay. But then we tend to avoid those. It’s interesting, I’ve got things very wrong before. I watched Total Wipeout and thought “This is just moronic”, and got all huffy and puffy, and when we had it on the show, most of the other guests just really enjoyed it, and I got emails from people saying “Don’t have a go at that, it’s just people falling over”, which, as we’ve established, is very funny. Then sometimes you get things that are bad but very well made, like Deadliest Warrior, which we looked at in the first series, which was jaw-dropping.
You won Best Newcomer at the British Comedy Awards…
Despite being 38. I was up against two children from Outnumbered. It was like a satire on age, the whole thing. And also being given best newcomer, despite the fact that I’ve been doing Screenwipe on BBC Four since 2006. Still, I’m not going to look an award in the eye and spit… That doesn’t quite make sense, but you know what I mean.
Does that cast you in the role of complete bastard, because you beat two children to the award?
I don’t know. I probably did them a favour in a lot of ways, because maybe with the anguish of missing that award burning in their chests, they will go on to achieve greater and greater things. Also, I imagine if you were making that show and one of the kids won an award, and the other one didn’t, that would probably cause all sorts of problems. So I probably did everyone a favour. But I think they’re very good, it’s a very good show, and they deserve recognition.
You’ve also won awards for writing. Do these things mean a lot to you?
No. Genuinely. Here’s a depressing anecdote: This year, I won an RTS award for Screenwipe, and I had a bad arm at the time, and I remember as they handed me this award, the only thought in my head was “That’s a bit heavy”. If you’re nominated for an award, it’s nice to get it rather than not get it. But do they mean anything? Ask me again in ten years time, when I’m staring at them all misty eyed, through an alcoholic haze. Crying. Ask me then what my pointless trinkets mean to me.
What can you say to make people who read this interview tune in to You Have Been Watching…?
We have worked out a system whereby we can magically fire genuine banknotes directly out of the screen and into the viewer’s lap. Bank notes and hamburgers.
You Have Been Watching airs on Thursdays at 10pm from 15th April 2010 on Channel 4.
> Read our interview with Charlie Brooker about Dead Set.
Written by Will Martin.
