Chris Tarrant: A Comedy Roast- Channel 4- Friday@ 10pm- 4 out 10

The roast format has now been transported here to the UK from the land of the USA and what a disappointment. Basically, volunteering to be roasted is a bit like volunteering to face a firing squad or volunteering to be in the Sugababes, both usually involve an awful lot of agonising and ultimately a death, career or otherwise. Hence why its done at the end of their careers as a final payday. Huzzah!

Tarrant's 30-year career was summed up in a nice 90-second montage showing him evolving from zany morning TV host with bad hair to straight-laced quiz show host with worse hair, the only man to have worse hair in the noughties than the 70s. Nice to see three decades of hard work condensed into a montage that lasts less time than brushing your teeth.

Anywho, the roasters are a curious mix of comedians, television personalities and Sally James. Oh, and a man that makes you question the reason why we are here in this world at all, Jamie Theakston.

Before long, about two minutes in fact, the show descends into sniping between the roasters, usually led by chief roaster Jimmy Carr, which begs the question why was Carr asked to host this show in the first place. A host should be the leader of the roast, not in among the throngs, uniting the roasters against their target. All that's left is occasional one-liners about Tarrant's divorce or Tiswas or Who Wants to be a Millionaire

As is my understanding, and I'm no TV producer here, a roast is meant to be full of original gags and not something a working mans club type comedian could pen whilst sat on the toilet reading the Daily Star.

To be honest, the stand out roasts come from people like James who actually has good anecdotes on Tarrant rather than just churning out endless divorce jokes and from Theakston who earnestly described him as an inspiration.

Even outstanding comedians like Sean Lock and Jack Dee get dragged down into a series of one-liners and barely average barbs about the shit gameshows Tarrant has hosted down the years, or into the mud-slinging between each other. Originality please roasters! The media do enough of this repetitive bollocks. The only comedians to come out of this show with any credit are Jack Whitehall who gave an eloquent, yet funny, roast and Mark Watson, who roasted Tarrant's appalling game shows properly. Interestingly, both of these are probably too young to remember Tarrant in his pomp.

Overall, a waste of what, across the pond at least, appears to be a very good format.


Dan