5 Blindingly Obvious Ways To Revitalise Saturday Night TV

4. More Sketch Shows

Britain is globally renowned for its sense of humour and rightly so. People love comedy intensely in this country and the amount of professional comedians, from the likes of Jimmy Carr to Michael McIntyre to Mickey Flanagan showcases this. But their stand-up acts take the slot of late night television, and this makes sense. So what kind of laughs could we see in a more prime time environment? Another brand of comedy, made famous by Lee Mack, Steve Coogan and Ricky Gervais most recently, and Monty Python and Morecambe and Wise in the past, is the genre known as the sketch-show. But where has this prized and most British of comedy formats gone from Saturday night TV? Apart from Mrs Brown's Boys, there aren't so many around at the moment. One reason is because the world has gone PC mad. Little Britain creators Matt Lucas and David Williams produced what many people 'on the street' found hilarious, yet many critics slated the show for its outrageous and offensive humour. Their second stint, Come Fly With Me, was arguably even better than its predecessor, yet because it offended people, it never got that popular... apparently. So another way we can revitalise Saturday night TV is by remembering comedy is not intended to offend, but only to make us take ourselves less seriously. Shakespeare poked fun at puritanism in Twelfth Night and made a mockery of dictatorship in many other of his plays, and risked his head as a result. What we need are comedians to break this politically correct obsession, because the stuff on offer at the minute is making our television boring and predictable. Having said that, there is a line, and it is a good idea that is isn't crossed. We have to respect each other and hopefully we won't offend anyone when making a joke. In that way, character sketch shows like Dead Ringers, I'm Alan Partridge and The Office need to make another entrance into Saturday night television. If variation is what people want at the minute, then what better way to achieve this then by the sort of bonkers comedy the rest of the world knows us for?