Never Mind The Buzzcocks series coming to Sky
- Never Mind The Buzzcocks is to return. Sky One has ordered a new series of the music-based panel show
- The host has yet to emerge, but Greg Davies was rumoured to be involved
- Ed Gamble and Jessica Knappett were team captains on the non-broadcast pilot
Never Mind The Buzzcocks is returning to television, with a full series ordered by Sky, British Comedy Guide can exclusively reveal.
Production is beginning on the music-focused panel show, following a successful pilot in September, first revealed by BCG, featuring Ed Gamble and Jessica Knappett as team captains and Paul Chowdhry and Dizzee Rascal as guests.
Greg Davies was also rumoured to have hosted the pilot but BCG has been unable to substantiate that.
Buzzcocks originally aired on BBC Two for 28 series between 1996 and 2015, when it was cancelled in order to "create space for new entertainment formats".
The first 17 series were hosted by Mark Lamarr, followed by Simon Amstell, then later by a number of guest presenters, before Rhod Gilbert chaired the final series. Phill Jupitus was a team captain for the entirety of its 18-year broadcast, facing off against Sean Hughes, Bill Bailey and Noel Fielding.
In an interview published yesterday, Amstell reiterated that if he was hosting Buzzcocks and Channel 4's Popworld now, he would be more empathetic towards the celebrities featured.
"It just feels like another person" he told The Times. "What I used to do was poke holes in other people, pointing out their egomania. Now I'm doing that to myself."
However, Bailey has enthusiastically backed the revival, telling The Mirror in December that "I don't think there is a show that's similar now," he said. "I don't think there is anything that's replaced it. It's not like they've given it a reboot and changed the format."
He said that the old format wasn't unkind, but could be "a bit edgy", adding that "sometimes people would get a little bit riled up, but, I mean, that was the nature of the show. It was some of the best fun I've ever had on television. I mean, those records would go on for two hours sometimes.
"What you ended up on the screen was just a fraction of the mayhem that was actually going on. They were great fun. And people would sort of get nervous."
The revival is once again being made by Talkback, after the show's erstwhile producer, Kate Edmunds, joined the comedy-centric company permanently in July as its new director of programmes.
Sky One aired a similar music panel show, Bring The Noise, in 2015, featuring Katherine Ryan and Joel Dommett as regular guests, with Kaiser Chiefs' singer Ricky Wilson hosting and Nicole Scherzinger and Tinie Tempah as team captains. However, it was cancelled after a single series due to poor ratings.