Somebody once told me, ‘Never be a pioneer.’ That somebody went on to
have exactly zero number one records, fail to write a best-selling novel and
certainly never watched a single episode of Vic and Bob’s Big Night Out (BBC 4,
10pm Wednesday)
It was December 1991 when I found myself in a crowded pub in Teddington
with Jonathan Ross, Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson and Simon Day, waiting to
be shepherded into a Chanel 4 studio to watch the recording of the Christmas
edition of Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out. They were totally unaware of my existence
and remain so to this day but, briefly, I was in the presence of comedy royalty
(except Ross, who looked as awestruck as I was).
As I and Vic Reeve’s Big Night Out (as it was then called) audience self-consciously
giggled our way through the recording, successive characters, such as Les,
Graham Lister, the Man with the Stick, Judge Nutmeg and several visitors to
Novelty Island, including Higson and Day (above) entered and exited the stage.
Vic variously gurned and slurred his way through a number of facial and vocal contortions
whilst acting as ring-master to his surreal flea circus and paraded and pouted
like a comedic version of Mick Jagger crossed with Reginald Bosanquet.
Two things were certain. 1) We had never seen anything like it before
and, 2) it would sink without trace into the Chanel 4 archives until one of
those talking head documentaries called something like ‘We Remember the 90’s’
was broadcast with Jonathan Ross going, ‘I’m the only human being alive that
still remembers this programme!’
The reason it couldn’t succeed was that the format would inevitably be replicated
and made more mainstream by a group of more disciplined, more easily dominated
artists who would be directed to iron out the rough edges, sanitise the
end-of-the-pier production values and dub some canned laughter over the bits
where the audience sat in silent anticipation waiting for a punch-line to
emerge from the chaos. The reason it did succeed was that that didn’t happen. Reeves
& Mortimer remained nimble enough to diversify and their style and content
was simply impossible to replicate. They made just two series of Big Night Out
for Chanel 4 before ‘mainstreaming’ themselves onto the BBC as Reeves &
Mortimer so not only had we not seen anything like it before, we would not see
anything like it again.
Until now.
It’s taken Bob 30 years to get his name alongside Vic’s on the Big Night
Out but now, as a cult hero in his own right, he not only deserves equal
billing but an equal share of the credit. The beauty of Big Night Out 2018 is
how they have managed to simply pick up right where they left off, creating the
feeling that a nerve somewhere inside was being stimulated again for the first
time in almost 30 years. Big Night Out remains an acquired taste so, if you
want to know what Tom Cruise was doing on the show or what happens when Vic
eats fruit, it’s probably best you watch the show yourself. If Vic and Bob are
as appealing to you as a jellied-eels in Marmite, turn over to UK Gold and
watch the Two Ronnies or something.
As Graham Lister’s performing owl urinated on command into a milk bottle
on Novelty Island, I felt I was back in that Teddington pub with me old mates
Wossy and Whitehouse who, I would like to bet, sat nodding in approval that the
boys had recaptured some of their lost youth as well as mine.
