Ruskington

I'm not sure I've encountered such a no-brainer of a concept. Trying to NOT laugh at Rob Beckett, Sarah Pascoe and Harriet Kelmsley? How could anyone fail? It actually seemed like some of them were having to pretend to be struggling not to laugh just to make their fellow 'comedians' feel better. And the constant interjection of dire guests and gimmicky tasks in order to try and make someone actually laugh was slightly painful.

It's a depressing state of affairs that this mob are considered the cream of the crop of UK comedy. At least with shows like 8OOTC and WILTY the format helps mask some of the atrocious guests. But LoL is a truly awful concept and is almost certainly scripted to some extent. The idea that over 6 hours we get a nice steady flow of contestants who 'break' and have to be removed one by one is completely implausible.

But without question, the worst thing of all was the endless fake laughter of Jimmy Carr (lowest moment of his career), Roisin Conaty (continues to steal a living) and the expelled guests as they tried to make it seem like there was actually something funny happening in the room. Dreadful.

2 stars; one for Richard Ayoade and one for Bob Mortimer. The only two people involved in this debacle who can actually claim to be comedians.

In general this was an ok set by Chappelle, maybe a bit half-hearted and repetitive but still better than most of the garbage out there that passes for stand-up comedy.

But then it came to the finale, a 15-minute bit about... errr... not sure what exactly? Dreams? Being a dreamer? Something about Russian mobsters and Lil Nas X? Where was he even going with this?

Turns out it was nothing more than a self-aggrandizing monologue that lacked humour and humility. He really seems to have developed something of a God complex and his shows are suffering for it.

It's a pretty spectacular drop from being arguably the best in the world at his profession to this. Like I say, it's still better than most comedy but, by the standards he has set, this is a huge fall in grace.

I've generally quite liked Robbie over the years. Decent music, decent voice and one of the best live performers of his generation.

I was hoping to get some deep insights into his real life exploits and learn more about him as a person. As it turns out, there wasn't really any of that. In fact, there wasn't much of anything whatsoever.

The old footage is mildly interesting but there's nothing groundbreaking that will shock people. There isn't much of a deep dive on any particular area of his life whether it be his childhood, his family, the Take That days, the mental health issues etc.

In fact, across the four episodes, Robbie doesn't really say anything at all. He just interjects a few cliches here and there about how hard everything has been. He just comes across as a bit narcissistic and self-involved. Fully understandable I guess, given the life he has led, but not really a great subject for a 3+ hour documentary.

The Lewis Capaldi film is a much better story about the highs and lows of celebrity. This is just fairly boring and self-indulgent.