Press clippings Page 16
Dara O Briain: 'Awards make zero difference'
He's a funny one, Dara O Briain. Funny, obviously, in the sense of making the public laugh (his stand-up tours are always sell-outs, he's sold more than a million DVDs and for the past 10 years been at the helm of BBC Two's panel show Mock The Week), but physically too.
Julia Llewelyn Smith, The Telegraph, 5th November 2015Dara O Briain hosts this new show which mocks TV. It seems he's now mocking the telly as well as mocking the week, but who's complaining? He's good enough to get away with it.
When I read this was to be a TV review show I expected something like Points of View, with O Briain looking back over the best and worst of the week's programmes, showing us little clips and reading out boring tweets from the viewers. I'm happy to tell you this is not the case, because the programmes featured here are warped, skewed and surreal versions of the shows we know.
We get a clip from Strictly Come Dancing or, at least, it looks like Strictly but something is wrong with it: there is no music, and so we watch the dancers twirl across the floor in an awkward, forced silence. And we have a clip from The Jeremy Kyle Show, but the usual mob of horrors demanding DNA tests have been replaced with children who're arguing about cheating on the X-Box and whether pocket money was pinched from the piggy bank.
It's good to know TV can laugh at itself.
Julie McDowall, The National (Scotland), 21st September 2015Jack Dee to host The Apprentice You're Fired
Jack Dee is to take over from Dara O Briain as the host of the companion show to The Apprentice, with Romesh Ranganathan as a regular panellist.
British Comedy Guide, 11th September 2015Podcast review: Comedian's Comedian with Dara O Briain
I regularly listen to Stuart Goldsmith's Comedian's Comedian podcasts but I don't usually review them. The latest one is so good, however, that I have made an exception.
Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 21st June 2015Radio Times review
When this show first aired ten years ago - back when Twitter didn't exist, David Cameron was Shadow Education Secretary and Andy Murray was outside the world's top 400 - it didn't look like much. Yet another panel show, and an unprepossessing mix of Have I Got News for You and Whose Line Is It Anyway? to boot - surely it wouldn't go on to be one of TV comedy's most reliable ratings bankers?
Well, it did - and now it's back for a triumphant 14th series, with Dara O Briain still in charge and a roster of strong comics, old and new: Katherine Ryan, James Acaster, Matt Forde and Josh Widdicombe join hoary regulars Hugh Dennis and Andy Parsons.
Jack Seale, Radio Times, 11th June 2015Dara O Briain: Crowd Tickler - the gig review
The man did not disappoint, working his derrière off throughout and yet remaining personable.
Roger Crow, The Huffington Post, 24th April 2015Dara O Briain review
Playing in front of a large Town Hall crowd, the experienced comic demonstrates his comfort on stage by performing an accomplished relaxed set filled with wry observational humour.
Ian McNeal, Teesside Gazette, 15th April 2015Dara O Briain: Crowd Tickler review
This Southend gig is his first 'proper' UK date after an Irish run and a few warm-ups; and as he wraps up he talks of tweaks he intends to make. They will be minor. The strength of his affable personality makes for an unpretentious couple of hours of comedy in which the laughs flow as fast and fluidly as his pacy material.
Steve Bennett, Chortle, 12th February 2015Dara O Briain review
The Mock the Week comedian puts inner torment to one side with perky routines and riffs on our culture of sentimentality.
Brian Logan, The Guardian, 29th January 2015Dara O Briain review
As the show nears its end, he gives a précis of his interaction with the audience during the evening. It's a trick he's been doing for some years now, but it's still an astonishing skill to see done so well as he mines even more jokes out of what has transpired earlier. A master at work.
Veronica Lee, The Arts Desk, 26th November 2014