When Stephen Fry went on 'Room 101', he lambasted the format and proposed a variant whereby guests named their favourite things. Its easy to see why it wasn't made. Negativity gets big audiences, positivity doesn't. 'Room 101' is unmissable only when the guest is brilliantly funny ( the episodes with Spike Milligan, Peter Cook and Linda Smith spring to mind ). Put someone who used to be on 'Blue Peter' or 'Eastenders' on it and you're in big trouble. Nick Hancock was the first and best presenter; Paul Merton is okay but tends not to put up much of an argument against the guest's choices. To give an example, when Michael Grade selected 'Dr.Who', Merton caved in completely, letting Grade spit his venom. Also the use of out-of context film clips is annoying in the extreme. On one occasion, the American singer Johnnie Ray was shown miming badly to one of his hits. I wonder if the studio audience's hilarity would have been as great if they'd been told beforehand he was stone deaf?
Review of Room 101
