Kevin Bishop: Sketch shows have short-changed the public
Kevin Bishop takes on a variety of guises in his new shows
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Thursday, 24, Jul 2008 03:31
Moving from the corridors of Grange Hill to the hallowed halls of comedy sketch shows via the Muppets, foreign film and bank adverts isn't exactly an established career path but for television comedian Kevin Bishop, it's one that's proved fruitful as spot-on Simon Cowell impressions have earned the 28-year-old his own show.
From the award-winning team behind Star Stories comes The Kevin Bishop Show on July 25th, with viewers of its pilot treated to a dizzying 43 sketches in 24 minutes, including the revelation of Sienna Miller's new perfume entitled Publicity, Bruce Forsyth's screen test for The Shining and the terrifying promotional campaign for Christopher Walken's crisps.
In response to questions about the motivation of the rapid-fire nature of his Channel 4 comedy, Bishop explained it was a reaction to a disappointing recent trend in TV sketch programmes.
"We felt that a lot of the public were getting short-changed with sketch shows," he told inthenews.co.uk.
"The performances were brilliant quality but people were seeing the same joke told six times in a series and a lot of it was overlong.
"We felt it was time to give people a bit more for their money."
He continued: "As performers we wanted to play as many characters as we could so the best way to do that was to shorten the sketches right down."
Lee Hupfield, who produced and co-wrote the show with Bishop, added: "It's an issue of TV budgets. With Little Britain or Mitchell and Webb, they're great sketch shows but have much more resources than we do.
"We'd rather film [short sketches] while Kevin's having a wig fitted for a new sketch and get a five-second laugh than just stand around waiting."
Bishop continued: "The beauty of what we do in comparison with other sketch shows is that they have to craft a sketch and rewrite and redraft until it's presentable as a three-minute sketch with all the lines in the right places and it's been studied until they hate it.
"What we do is take an idea that we've just had and just make a sketch out of it - it keeps it so fresh."
"Even with simple jokes, once you visually get the build up, it still ends up being funny."
The speed - intended to leave you "punch-drunk with comedy" - works as an antidote to the darker comedy that might offend viewers of a more sensible disposition, Bishop added, telling inthenews.co.uk he wanted audiences to say "'Did that just happen?' before suddenly a new sketch has already started".
Designed to adhere to a "Two Ronnies genre of comedy" according to its young star, The Kevin Bishop Show sees Bishop and Hupfield making a "rod for our own backs" by committing to a style of comedy that remains resolutely fresh, with viewers likely to be disarmed on a weekly basis by the entertainment fodder on offer.
Such a forced originality also made a fast - and "stressful" - shooting schedule an essential, with only one or two takes available for "the hardest thing I've ever had to do," the comedian added.
But quality remained the benchmark throughout, he explained.
"We got to a point where, unlike a normal sketch show where you get to compare sketches and say 'We'll put that one in episode five', we didn't want to have an episode five that was a bit s**t, we wanted to have six powerhouse episodes."
With the self-confessed silliness of his show having drawn comparisons with Russ Abbot and Dick Emery, it would be easy to presume that an edgy young comedian like Bishop, who's also forged an impressive career in criminally-underrated foreign films such as L'Auberge Espagnole, would baulk at being labelled similar to such middle of the road funnymen.
But he retorts: "I wouldn't rubbish Russ Abbot or Dick Emery at all because as a kid, I thought it was hilarious. Harry Hill was one of my favourites as well.
"But my comedies that I grew up on were The Fast Show, Harry Enfield and Chums, The Young Ones - I used to watch these on a loop all the time," he told inthenews.co.uk.
"And I think that I've got most of my comedy from the Paul Whitehouse-style.
"Though this is probably ten times faster than The Fast Show!"
While Simon Cowell, one of the most celebrated Bishop impersonations from Star Stories, is set for a brief appearance on the comedian's own show - which will flash in front of the eyes of the Friday night post-pub audience as if they were involuntarily channel-hopping - steadily returning characters are unlikely, he admitted.
But no celebrity is safe from Bishop's wrath, he added, telling inthenews.co.uk: "Everyone's game - the bigger they are, the fairer game they are for p**s-taking, I think."
Lewis Bazley
The Kevin Bishop Show premieres at 22:00 BST on Channel 4 on Friday July 25th.