Nick Hewer's move to Countdown should give TV bosses plenty of inspiration for further innovations
Nick Hewer, one of Alan Sugar's advisers from The Apprentice, has been appointed the new host of Countdown. Talk about going from one thankless task to another! I don't like The Apprentice. The contestants' ridiculous Generation Game level of knockabout idiocy is so obviously manufactured by the production team that it makes me feel that viewers and participants are being exploited in equal measure. The contrast between the hopefuls' meagre talents and their stratospheric estimation of them makes me feel sad and misanthropic. Presenting Alan Sugar with a series of rhetorical open goals, which even a man of his faltering articulacy cannot fail to miss, struck me as a dispiriting way for Hewer to end his business career.
And now he's chosen to face the Countdown audience, the toughest crowd in comedy. They're at the opposite end of the scale from Wimbledon spectators, whose sides split if a pigeon perches on the net. Countdown's live audience, those of them who actually are alive, remain stony-faced at the dictionary corner occupant's most tried and tested anecdotes. Even Gyles Brandreth on a roll (in either a metaphorical or literal sense ? I wouldn't put it past him) elicits little more than a group exhalation. We only know they're there because of the dutiful applause at the beginning.
But, having met Hewer a few times, I suspect he'll make a go of it. As Channel 4's chief creative officer Jay Hunt said of the appointment, Hewer "has a real twinkle in his eye". He gives the impression of not taking anything seriously ? of viewing the swirling currents of television from an amused and bone-dry high ground. I think he's having a lot of fun in the autumn of his career, messing around on TV, and is prospering all the more because he exudes to the media people around him, many of whom treat their jobs with risible seriousness, the attitude that he can take it or leave it. Anyone who's heard of reverse psychology will understand how much that makes them want to give him jobs.
Hewer was recently a guest on Would I Lie to You?, a TV panel game I appear on, and he stole the show. The highlight was when he was persuaded to get into a double-head-holed "cuddle jumper" with Rob Brydon. Brydon was claiming it was something he often wore while watching television with his wife. This would have been a funny moment whoever was up Brydon's jumper but Hewer played the moment with such a perfect combination of deadpan and wit that I became hysterical.
Throughout the show, he demonstrated an impressive understanding of how his age and appearance came across and how best to exploit that comically. Any suggestion that the audience or other panellists might find themselves laughing at, rather than with, this curious figure soon became unthinkable as we realised he had a rare comic instinct. I suppose you can't work for Alan Sugar for 21 years without a highly developed sense of the absurd. He's a natural performer and I suspect he'll do a good job as the new host of Countdown. And, for television as a whole, this development is very exciting.
Critics of the medium claim that it's a bit short of good ideas at the moment. What they've missed is that those running the industry have had a radical insight: television can now do without ideas. Over the seven decades of its existence it's had enough and it can now coast into a prosperous future just by revamping them. This new vision first manifested itself in remakes: from Doctor Who to Reggie Perrin, from Minder to Marple, from Downton Abbey, which is basically a remake of Upstairs, Downstairs, to the actual remake of Upstairs, Downstairs, which ironically probably contained marginally more novelty. And now Jim'll Fix It is coming back, despite, or perhaps because of, the death of its eponymous enabler.
The next stage was the realisation that television didn't need to make new stars ? they could just repackage those who'd already come to prominence in new situations. Hence Strictly Come Dancing and I'm a Celebrity? Get Me Out of Here. The brilliance of this is that those who gain fame in other reality shows can, after 18 months in the singing wilderness, be parachuted into the actual jungle, with no need for them to be involved in a proper television programme at any stage in between.
But Hewer's move from The Apprentice to Countdown shows there is a third flying buttress to this cathedral against originality: you can parachute celebrities into programmes that weren't even designed for surprise juxtapositions. Any format can benefit from an incongruous paraceleb. It mimics the sensation of novelty in the same way that I imagine methadone gives a passable imitation of a smack buzz. So, as someone who depends on TV for his employment, I've thought of some more re-castings which should keep the medium prospering for decades to come:
Frankie Boyle and Rebecca Adlington to present The One Show The heart-throb comedian and the swimmer he finds so unattractive bury the hatchet in an attempt to give the ailing magazine format more edge and vaguely tie it in with the Olympics.
David Suchet as Poirot to host Bargain Hunt Who better than this connoisseur of fine objects and murder weapons to front the revamped daytime hit, now that Peter Ustinov as Poirot is dead?
Michael Portillo, Alan Sugar, Richie Benaud and Tom Stoppard to be the new judges on The X Factor As the show haemorrhages ratings, what it needs is something truly odd to staunch the bleeding. This weird four-pronged incongruity attack should do it. And they can't be any worse at mentoring pop stars than Louis Walsh.
Louis Walsh to host Question Time He can't be any worse at chairing a political discussion than he is at mentoring pop stars and, having expended vital resources bringing this odd mediocrity into the public eye, it would be a waste not to put him somewhere.
Bruce Forsyth as the new butler in Downton Abbey "Mr Brucie", as he'd be known, so as not to confuse the ageing star, would be the perfect addition to the hilarious drama. He'd dance into the drawing room with a tea tray and refuse to leave until the Crawleys had shown proper appreciation for his jokes ? and, in fact, not even then because he's too deaf to hear their exhausted dutiful laughter.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/20/david-mitchell-nick-hewer-countdown
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