They must take more risks, say producers

Broadcast Comedy Forum: Veteran TV producer Jimmy Mulville has slammed the BBC for playing things too safe in comedy.

‘The BBC has really been derelict in its duty,’ he said, claiming the corporation needed to be more ‘willing to fail’ in order to secure the comedy hits of the future.

He was one of many speakers at the Broadcast Comedy Forum urging broadcasters to take more risks with what programmes they make – and to stick with new shows to give them time to grow an audience. E4’s The Inbetweeners was frequently cited, which started with 300,000 viewers, but now its third series draws well over two million.

But Jon Thoday, of agents and producers Avalon, said too few channels were willing to show that patience.

‘Executives want quick results, and they just don’t get it in comedy,’ he said. ‘They want something that’s a success immediately. That hardly ever works. But when something succeeds, it is really important to stick with it.’

And he said that impatience meant it was hard to develop new comedians. ‘There’s a real problem for younger talent to learn how to be funny in a TV medium,’ he said. ‘If you are a hot artist, you might just get one try. Learning is difficult in the UK, there are very few training grounds where you can fail

Producer Kenton Allen agreed, adding: ‘With Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, It took Paris [their forgotten 1994 series] to get to Father Ted.

Mulville, who runs Outnumbered and Have I Got News For You makers Hat Trick, said that giving programmes time to grow ‘is not only antipathetic to the way I feel, it’s bad business.

And he said the American system, with large teams of writers on long-running shows, had much to recommend it. ‘Young people are refreshing the business from the bottom up there,’ he said.

He also praised the professionalism of the system that meant decisions were made quickly for fear of missing out on the next big thing, the relentless focus on improving the script and even the cast, and the vast marketing machine that promotes programmes once they had been made – all in contrast to the more laid-back British system.

However, he admits that he made mistakes in America when he first worked there on their version of Whose Line Is It Anyway in the late Nineties. ‘I got seduced by the golf cart lifestyle,’ he said. ‘In three years I didn’t sell a single pilot. But I had lots of fun… and learnt lots of things.’

Published: 23 Sep 2010