Stephen Mulhern

Although Sunday Night At The Palladium will mainly be fronted by a number of comedians, this first episode was hosted by the rather bland Stephen Mulhern. I've never really been a fan of Mulhern's and find him to be somebody who is severely lacking in the charisma department. As a result I found this opening episode of Sunday Night At The Palladium to be fairly lacklustre especially when Mulhern was interacting with the audience in some obviously scripted moments. Thankfully the show was saved by the special guests including Bryan Adams who knocked out a couple of hits and Alan Davies who performed a selection of jokes from his new tour. I liked how the variety of acts would appeal to certain members of the family with the kids lapping up Little Mix's performance whilst the older generation probably enjoyed Alfie Boe's warble through a Les Miserables number. Additionally I enjoyed the mixture of memorable names with a couple of variety acts that I'd never encountered before. For example quick change act David and Dania were an unexpected highlight and Canadian novelty trio Les Beaux Feres were equally surprising. I'm sure that Sunday Night At The Palladium will vary in quality depending on who the host is but on the whole I found the opening episode fairly entertaining. More than anything else it's great to see an old-fashioned variety show with features recognisable rather than yet another reality programme in which normal people attempt to find stardom.

Last night, ITV tried and failed to revive legendary, classic and once classy variety show Sunday Night at The London Palladium under the inexplicably shortened title Sunday Night at The Palladium.

If Simon Cowell had produced it, the show could have retained some class. Instead, ITV transformed class into crass and the result was somewhere between a reality show produced by Endemol on an off night and Saturday Night at Butlins for Essex Man.

Stephen Mulhern presented it like an edition of Big Brother's Bit On The Side and it came complete with what looked very much like an audience plant towards the start of the show.

To compound the felony of failing to revive an old classic rather than thinking up a new idea - and rather than have highly original variety acts - they went for Cirque du Soleil performers Les Beaux Freres who nicked the idea of the Greatest Show On Legs' classic 1982 Naked Balloon Dance and replaced the balloons with towels.

They performed perfectly serviceably and at least, unlike many acts, they changed the music and the objects. But original it most certainly was not.

Sunday Night at The London Palladium used to go out live. It did not last night. It went out dead.

Radio Times review

My reaction of "Ah, Beat the Clock, the Tiller Girls, the goodbye wave from the revolving stage" was met with a blank look from the younger staff at RT. But viewers of a certain age will remember the variety show that was the cornerstone of ITV schedules during the late 1950s and early 60s.

It's being revived with guest hosts (Rob Brydon and Bradley Walsh among them, although it's the affable Stephen Mulhern tonight), who introduce a mix of famous acts and downright obscure ones. It's highly unlikely that the Tiller Girls will come out of retirement to kick off the show, though.