Unacceptable (TLC)
Rating: One out of five stars
The hypocrisy of it is enough to make your eyes pop. Romesh Ranganathan laid into the Royal Family on TLC’s new panel game, even mocking the death of Princess Diana.
‘The Royals are essentially our longest-running soap opera,’ he sneered: ‘Marriages, deaths, fights, affairs… car crashes.’
That drew a warning rumble from an audience who, until this point, had been applauding his every jibe.
He goaded his fellow performers, on Unacceptable, to match his jeers. Irish comedian Joanne McNally proposed, ‘Harry could do a DNA test live.’
Romesh lobbed an insult about the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales, too libellous to be printed.
And then — with such shameless double standards that the other guests thought he was joking at first — he admitted that, five years ago, he performed at the annual Christmas party for palace staff.
Making one of the accusations of racism that are his stock-in-trade, he pretended a royal aide had booked him to be a waiter as well as a stand-up comic: ‘Can you bring 20 minutes of your best stuff and some poppadoms?’
The reality is that he has appeared twice on the Royal Variety Performance, hosting it in 2019, which is how he attracted the notice of Charles and Camilla — who were in the front row when he entertained at the palace. How’s that for gratitude?
Sophie Willan, Joanne McNally and Romesh Ranganathan on the new show Unacceptable
Pictured: (Left to right) Katherine Ryan, Richard Ayoade, Roisin Conaty, Ed Gamble, Joanne McNally, Sophie Willan and Romesh Ranganatham
Unacceptable looks like every other TV panel game, with two teams of three comedians facing each other across desks.
The usual faces are there: Roisin Conaty, Katherine Ryan… all the ones who didn’t get the Strictly gig.
Ed Gamble comperes the show, a man with skin so tautly smooth, he can barely blink. He’s just a pair of moving lips.
The format is a shambles, a mish-mash of BBC1’s Would I Lie To You? and Mel Giedroyc’s game show Unforgivable on U&Dave.
To be fair to TLC, a channel that arrived on Freeview (at number 12) last January, the producers are probably testing to see which rounds work best. The answer so far is: none of them.
To open and close the show, players had to persuade the audience to vote for ‘unacceptable’ ideas. Romesh argued, facetiously, that the Royal Family deserved more money.
Katherine proposed, with more conviction, that all men should have vasectomies at birth.
In between, they challenged each other to make a case for mildly offensive statements, such as, ‘I truly believe women aren’t funny’ and ‘cheating once doesn’t count’.
The editing is ragged, too. One or two of Gamble’s remarks didn’t quite make sense, as though he was referring to material dropped from the final cut.
Romesh brought his mother on, of course, and Katherine her husband. I suspect it’s a non-negotiable condition of their contracts.
Some performers expect a chauffeured limo, or vegan snacks in the green room. These two demand cameos for their relatives.
