Jason Manford

Show Me The Funny was a shambles that looked like it was being hastily cobbled ­together as they went along. Anyone work out what the hell was going on? Damned if I could.

Twitter fan and former One Show sensation Jason Manford was the host. I think.

Dying a death in Liver­pool, 10 criminally hopeless ­alleged stand-up ­comedians seemed determined to establish they couldn't make us laugh if their lives ­depended on it. Mission accomplished.

Meanwhile, Jimmy ­Tarbuck and Alan Davies spouted seasoned-pro claptrap with some old girl doing an impression of Cruella De Vil on a bad-hair day. They were the ­judges. I think.

But back to the action... and contestant Cole Parker's first "joke" of the empty night: "The amount of oestrogen in this room is as palpable as it is ­intimidating." Boom-boom!

After that it was downhill all the way. Hard to crack a smile.

There are supposed to be six more episodes of this ocean-going turkey. But is it really worth ­carrying on? I think not.

Review: Show Me The Funny

Unfortunately titled, considering the scarcity of laughs. Jason Manford presents The Apprentice-for-comedians, as 10 stand-ups compete for £100,000, a DVD deal, and a nationwide tour.

Jason Manford's gags cut from Show Me The Funny

Jason Manford's new programme Show Me The Funny flopped on Monday - after a legal wrangle forced bosses to cut the comic's jokes.

Show Me The Funny showed how boring comedians can be

Show Me The Funny, hosted by Jason Manford, strangely seems intent on showing just how unfunny ten comedians competing for the top prize are capable of being.

'Show Me The Funny' falls flat with 2.6m

The launch of Jason Manford's Show Me The Funny failed to excite viewers on Monday night, and was trounced by New Tricks, according to the latest audience data.

For better or worse, the comedy circuit gets its own X Factor - but the contestants who will be battling it out by gigging their way round the country have already been whittled down to ten. They include experienced hands such as Patrick Monahan and people who have never had a paid gig. The winner gets £100,000, a multi-date tour and their very own Christmas DVD. Cheeky QI chappy Alan Davies is a judge, while jovial Jason Manford, presumably hoping for a big-league bounce-back after his short-lived stint on The One Show and that 'sexting' to-do, hosts.

Here's a show to cheer up anyone feeling bereft after waving farewell to Lord Sugar and his swaggering apprentices. For this series promises to be every bit as amusing and nail-bitingly compulsive, with the added bonus of a few decent jokes. Most of those are courtesy of host Jason Manford, who puts ten fledgeling stand-ups through their paces in an attempt to find the next Michael McIntyre. Each week the hopefuls will perform new material for a tricky audience, including hospital patients, secondary school pupils, tipsy Welsh rugby players and a squadron of Scots Guards. Tonight they face a roomful of Liverpudlian ladies. Cue lamentable gags about scousers and even dodgier impersonations that soon have judges Alan Davies and crimson-lipped critic Kate Copstick - who clearly intends to be the Cowell of comedy - wincing. Even tonight's guest judge, jolly Jimmy Tarbuck, can't crack a smile. Fortunately, if there's one thing more entertaining than first-rate stand-up, it's watching wannabes bomb. There's no need for Michael McIntyre to watch his back just yet.

Jason Manford: TV heaven & hell interview

We fired some quick Qs at Jason Manford earlier this year to find out his ideas on TV heaven and TV hell...

ITV's new stand-up comedy competition Show Me The Funny is quite an odd beast. The idea of having comedians compete X Factor style is fair enough - and has been done before - but this Jason Manford-fronted show also involves the contestants doing tasks...

Manford: "I'm going to split you into pairs, and send you off with a list of things to find and people to see." What?! "And whoever wins will get to determine the running order for this big gig." Oh, I see! No, still what?! Bizarre. The notion is that helping out at a hair salon or setting up a blind date will help the comics get to know the people of the town they're gigging in, and in turn help them write some new material. We'll skip over the fact that lots of decent comedians actively avoid doing "town-specific" stuff as it's kinda cliche...

The tasks take up half of the programme, meaning Show Me The Funny is, in fact, what you find yourself shouting at the screen. There are certainly talented comedians involved - I've seen a couple of them live, and Stuart Goldsmith in particular is brilliant - but you don't get to see enough of their acts to make up your own mind.

A more cynical tv-based e-mail that likes to use glaringly topical references might say an ITV1 show about stand-up comedy that is hosted by Jason Manford and features Alan Davies as a judge is something akin to Fox News asking Rebekah Brooks to host a show about running a morally superior newspaper business, with Rupert Murdoch as judge.

But we're not that e-mail. We like Manford, though he's never really been funny-funny, and Davies redeemed himself a touch by being good in Whites... so we're going to let it slide. In this reality show, 10 wildly different stand-ups have to perform to tough rooms and then get voted out by Davies and the Mr Nasty of the affair, sidekick Kate Copstick. And it is pretty good - but not because anyone is particularly funny. It's actually interesting and unusual to watch comics dying on stage.