Channel 4 not taking 'James Acaster: People Person' forward
- James Acaster has revealed that Channel 4 will not be commissioning his late-night game show after the pilot proved a disaster
- So much went wrong with James Acaster: People Person that he suggested that the channel put the three-hour recording out in its entirety as a six-part spectacle instead
- "I've never seen them do that before. This is absolutely [what we should do], this has been so fucking nuts" he told the Always Be Comedy podcast
James Acaster has revealed that People Person, the riotous game show he piloted for Channel 4 last summer, is not being picked up for series.
In fact, the pilot, which British Comedy Guide first revealed was being made for the channel was such a disaster that he asked Channel 4 to put the three-hour recording out as a six-part car-crash spectacle instead.
Appearing on a live recording of the Always Be Comedy podcast, Acaster told fellow comic James Gill that "everyone was lovely, the whole team were brilliant" from production company Tuesday's Child.
James Acaster: People Person was based on a game that he had devised on the Dave show Question Team in 2021, in which comics had to guess traits of members of the public, such as who had the biggest garden or the most battery life on their phones left. The segment had proved popular on social media and led Channel 4 to take a chance on developing the format further.
However, with considerably more people involved than in the original idea, as "it went from four members of the public and four panellists to having 20 members of the public on stage behind me" also playing the game, in addition to a studio audience with "these things that they had to vote with to say what they thought the right answer was", it became "complicated".
A round featuring one contestant's boyfriend, a wrestler, required multiple takes as he initially broke a sugar glass vase too early. Then he actually cut himself with it and required first aid, with the fallout leaving comedian Phil Wang, "tears streaming, laughing so hard" at the wrestler breaking character in a "civilised" way, asking if he was required to do it again, even as Acaster was "stepping on all this, like, broken glass".
Comic Larry Dean had a "cube" that was meant to light up but kept "fucking up". And "I'd say everything went wrong that could have gone wrong [with the filming] and I absolutely loved it," Acaster told Gill.
So much so that he suggested to the studio audience that they cut the pilot into six half-hours "and put it out as a series.
"I've never seen them do that before. This is absolutely [what we should do], this has been so fucking nuts."
"Then the commissioner at Channel 4, who, you know, it's no secret at the moment, they're not swimming in cash, comes up to me afterwards and goes: 'Are you serious about that?'"
Acaster replied: "Yeah, I don't care that I'm only going to get paid for a pilot, because it was great!"
There were also "some things that are problematic and we would have to edit out ... But I would like Channel 4 to listen to this. I'd like to have a meeting with them where we do try and devise how to recreate that. Or at least get the footage from that poor production company and rip them off!"
Later in the podcast, Acaster disclosed that after appearing in a recent non-broadcast pilot for a format called Dinner Is Scrapped, in which the Off Menu podcast host thought he was going to appear as a guest and be fed meals made by a Michelin-starred chef with ecologically sound ingredients, he had felt "tricked".
It transpired that he and celebrity chef Andi Oliver were now judging the food, which had actually been cooked by a former Love Island contestant and ex-footballer, and was served to them cold.
"It's not gonna get picked up anyway," he predicted of the show, from a production company that makes activist content. No broadcaster is currently known to be attached.
"With the greatest of love to the whole crew, it was not a good show. Love, love, so many members of that crew, some of whom I've worked with before. It's very nice to see everybody.
"But I don't think it's gonna get away. But if it does, I'm not on it. Absolutely no way I'm working for people who have tricked me twice already ... I'm not gonna be working with the environmentalist liars."