The comedy roast is a popular format from Comedy Central in America coming to the UK courtesy of Channel 4, where comedians and celebs get together to honour and take the rye out of a living legend. Thanks to Youtube, I’ve seen clips of the American roasts of Pamela Anderson and Bob Saget, plus I learn Denis Leary, Larry The Cable Guy, William Shatner, Joan Rivers and Flavor Flav have also been roasted.
I was lucky enough to secure an invite to the recording of the Comedy Roast of Chris Tarrant. You know your in for some verbal when the evening is hosted by the acid tongued wit of Jimmy Carr, and fellow comedians Sean Lock, Mark Watson, Jack Whitehall, Jack Dee and Paddy McGuiness set about Chris’s habit of hosting crap gameshows, TARRANT ON TV, his divorce settlement to wife Ingrid after being exposed in the tabloids having an affair, his arrest for ‘throwing cutlery’ in a restuarant, and his love of fishing.
Also attempting to stick the boot in was breakast radio host Jamie Theakston who had problem reading the autocue so Tarrant ‘showed him how easy it was’, Sally James who worked with Chris on TISWAS, and Mark Durden-Smith, a man mostly known for being the son of Gloria Hunniford and presenter on ITV2. Chris is a family friend of The Hunnifords/Durden-Smiths, and this explained why he was there.
The most topical line of the night came from Jack Dee (and will, most probably, be cut) when a joke didn’t get the laughs he had hoped for, he remarked “well that went down worse than Stirling Moss in a lift shaft” Sean Lock got the first dig in, commending Chris on his charity work, notably giving £12.5 million to a Norwegian single mother. McGuinness segment hosted a ‘Millionaire’ style quiz of obvious answers. Mark Watson delivered the best line of the night in saying ‘he can’t wait for the ‘slumdog version of Man O Man’.
All in all, the put downs were a bit repetitive, and at least the roasters went about cutting each other down to size as well.
Paddy McGuiness got done for his recent ‘TAKE ME OUT’ on ITV. Nearly all the guys STILL WOULD on Sally James…
Having watched the American roast of Pamela Anderson, the British version is far tamer, but I think that is to be expected. Then again, neither Tarrant, Osbourne or Forsyth have had sex tapes circulated on the internet and been a Playboy Bunny… YET.
The Comedy Roast of Pamela Anderson
Bea Arthur reads from Pamela Anderson novel…
Tv Trigger 