Corden: Sketch show was 'a mistake'

'I wasn't good enough,' comic admits

James Corden has admitted what many critics have long thought – that his sketch show with Mat Horne was a ‘mistake’.

And he admitted he ‘wasn’t good enough’ to write the BBC Three show, despite his experiences on Gavin & Stacey.

But he did say that the media backlash against the show, which ran for just one series last year, was disproportionate.

‘I got called a fat waste of space a lot in the papers,’ he said ; The material wasn't strong enough, but the torrent of abuse I got for it from the media was something else. But you can't cry about it - my life is a picnic.’

He told ShortList magazine that he wasn’t experienced enough to tackle a sketch show, adding: ‘I didn't go to Edinburgh for five years in a row learning my trade as I should have done. I was an actor on the back of a hit show.

‘The truth is, honestly, I'm not good enough at writing sketches to write a sketch show. It was a mistake. There's no point in doing something unless it's going to be as good as Big Train or The Fast Show. Why bother? And the absolute truth is I wasn't good enough.’

Published: 4 Mar 2010

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