Satirical show Mock The Week is returning to TV screens, almost four years after its cancellation.
Running for 21 series from 2005-2022 on the BBC, the show featured two panels of comedians poking fun at the week’s news headlines. The show was presented by Dara Ó Briain, with the success of the show launching him into the public eye, along with the likes of Frankie Boyle and Russell Howard.
The show was cancelled in 2022, but repeats have regularly appeared on channels such as U&Dave (formerly Dave). Last year, it was announced that the show would be revived for a new channel, the free-to-air network TLC, with a nine-episode series debuting on February 1. Ó Briain will return along with a rotating cast of comedians.
Speaking to The Telegraph, the host said that the show being away from the BBC won’t cause too much change in the show, as the broadcaster did not interfere with their comedy as much as people think. “It was always a case of do the thing in the room and then we’ll sort it out later,” he said. “And Standards and Practice, whatever that department is called, can watch the thing afterwards. But I don’t think it happened as much as people assume it did.”
He added: “What I won’t miss is the people with stopwatches timing how much we did of each [political] party, because you had to have BBC balance.”
Frankie Boyle, one of the show’s most popular and controversial panellists, continued to work with the BBC after leaving the show in 2009. He presented the biting political satire show Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, which ran from 2017-2022.
In 2023, when it was announced the show was cancelled, he tweeted: “Ah well, there’s to be no more New World Order on the BBC. Not surprising in the current climate, I suppose. Just very grateful to have had six series of working with the funniest people in the business.”
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