Never Mind The Buzzcocks

Phil Jupitus, Simon Amstell, and Bill Bailey

Never Mind the Buzzcocks is another comedy panel show that has been airing since 1996. I found this show on YouTube last July. It was a rainy day and before I knew it, it was a rainy night. The show was hosted by Mark Lamarr for 17 series and by the 19th series Simon Amstell took control. He was a widely popular presenter but ended up resigning at the end of the 22nd series to concentrate on other projects. Each episode is only a half hour long and it has four rounds. There are two teams: one led by Phil Jupitus and the other led by Noel Fielding (regular team captain since series 23 on). Both of the teams consists of two other celebrities ranging from singers to published authors.

The first round generally consists of each team being asked a question about a music group or an artist that tend to be quite unique. One example would be: What did has been pixelated in this music video? A still from the video would be shown and the team would have to guess what it is. They are often quite obscure objects like a zebra head or a loaf of bread. Round two is known as the Intros Round. Two of the team members have to perform the introduction of a song a cappella style. But they are not singing the words to the song but rather creating the sounds of the instruments. Here is Josh Groban and Omid Djalili performing an intros round for Martin Freeman:

An old performance or music video is shown during the third round. A line up of five people are brought out on stage and the teams have to figure out which one out of the line-up was the musician from the performance. For the final round, it is the Next Lines segment. The presenter reads a lyric from a song and the team has to say the line that comes right after it. Sometimes the lyrics are a singer's that is actually on the team and sometimes the song is incredibly simple like Happy Birthday. All luck for that.

My favorite part of the show is the banter that goes on between the teams and the presenter. Funny or embarrassing stories that crop up. It never strays away from a controversial topic and is quite upfront with opinions on the music industry. The comedy itself is dry and sarcastic. Some of the guests on the show are pretty controversial themselves. I haven't watched any of the older episodes with Mark Lamarr as the host but I have seen the more recent ones and with Series 25 having just ended in December, it looks like my summer break is booked for the first week.

A quick clip of Simon doing what he does creating a bit of controversy: