Jesus Christ Superstar!

When you spend your days practically weeping into your duvet because you can't get a job or be bothered to write any new jokes it's always nice to have a reason to get out of the house, so thank heaven for my old chums and former employers at Myspace Comedy who mailed yesterday asking me to appear in a sketch. As per it was a brilliantly funny idea, an X-Factor rip off to find the new Jesus. Title? 'The † Factor', obviously. Knowing the usual Comedybox suspects as I do it wasn't hard to sense the hand of the rather brilliant Sarah Campbell in this one, it's just her bag.

I rolled up fashionably (oh, all right, typically) late to the Cavendish Arms in Stockwell (mental note, they do a fortnightily open mic night. Must wander along one of these days) to find a sunny pub garden full of people drinking beer, dressed as Jesus. As you do. It says a lot about involvment in the comedy world that I now barely blink at such sites. There was a pimp Jesus, a tramp Jesus (the brilliant Nathaniel Tapley as it happens, pictured above) a glamour model Jesus (she was very nice, her name was Chloe, she also insisted on being in the picture. You can see her here blindfold boxing), a South African Jesus, a French-Asian Acrobat Jesus, and...er...Luke Toulson. Sarah was doing the Kate Thornton/Dermot bit dressed as a Nun. As I said, I barely even register this stuff as weird these days (besides, Sarah dresses as a Nun quite often). Everyone ready to do a 'Jesus' turn in front of the judges, (a brilliantly cast Tiffany Stevenson, Brigitte Aphrodite and Paul Litchfield).

This did present a bit of a problem, in that most of the others had actually prepared some form of act for the sketch, where as I had hastily re-written an old sketch of mine that disproves Jesus's miracles, delivered as a monologue by a former public school chap who thought he was the new messiah. Before I did my bit it was suggested that maybe I should be slightly racist as well, so I went on stage before the judges and improvised about being the "new 21st century messiah, only, ya know, not a dark chap like the last one". It was nice to improvise with the "judges" and see what came out. I have literally no idea if any of it was any good, I suppose we'll see if it gets included in the finished sketch or not.

It was a fun afternoon in the Sun with friends anyway.

On a side note, last night I caught the new Richard Curtis film, The Boat that Rocked. On the off chance you're interested...it's okay, the cast is too big to really care about any of the characters and just for once Rhys Darby doesn't do as well as he usually does. But it's decent knockabout fun, and the soundtrack is ace. Go and see it if you have nothing better to do I suppose. Like me!

Cruelty to Children

Television takes increasingly weird twists and as we get progressively further towards Rape An Ape becoming reality. This morning I sat transfixed in front of the CBBC Channel while Who Wants To Be A Superhero unfolded before my baffled eyes. This may be the moment where children's programming on the BBC -the channel that gave us Doctor Who, Dark Season, Trev and Simon and Blue Peter- finally nukes the fridge. The show takes the Project Runway/America's Next Top Model formula and applies it to kids who want to be super heroes. Thirteen oldish kids (the youngest is nine, the eldest just inside their teens) have designed themselves Super Hero personas and must compete in daily tasks -Set by Stan Lee himself, no-less- to see who has the most comic book potential, the winner getting an american Holiday and a Stan Lee designed comic with them as the star.

It's not the format that's odd though, because it's the same one used by countless poorly executed reality comps around the world, it's seeing it applied to children. At the end of todays show three of them were picked to be possibly "powered down" (eg sent home) and had to stand under spotlights while hapless Dick-and-Dom-Lite Pop Idol rejects Sam and Mark picked which of the blubbing pre-teens wearing ridiculous spandex outfits got sent packing from the kids paradise they'd been enjoying, into the waiting of arms of their jeering friends, who'll probably have already got the "I am a batty man, kick me" stickers ready to attach to the back of their coats for the rest of their lives. There is no way any 12 year old is going to live this down through secondary school.

Today's challenge saw the kids first have to argue over who gets the camp bed and who gets the plush bunks ("I have to have a bed because I get sore back when I sleep, and anyway I'm not moving." said 'Mega Mighty Man' sprawling over his bunk while his fellow hero in waiting -the one with a genuine disability no less- found himself sleeping on floor level due to being a bit slow) before heading out for a running race where they were cleverly tricked one at a time into having to help an old lady or finish the race quickly. Obviously because most children are selfish fuckers, they ignored the old dear and tried to win the race while we the viewer watch on in horror at the youth of today.

It's already obvious who the Beeb are favouring. One of the children is not only black and has glasses, but has sort of gnarled and mangled hands. Ethnic and disabled? That's reality TV gold! And he stopped to help the old lady.

The whole thing feels creepy and exploitative. Of course children are cunts, that's no reason to show us their darker side on a supposedly frothy feel good show. And I certainly don't enjoy seeing them being forced into a stressful vote-off finale in humiliating outfits.

At what point did Knightmare, Fun House and Run The Risk stop being acceptable formats for childrens game shows?

The world still has some goodness left though. I went to see the brilliant new production of A Little Night Music last night in the West End. It's a pearl, go and see it.