You’ve Been Framed! review – the show that never fails to deliver

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/sep/29/youve-been-framed-review-irresistible

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The phrase “golden age of television”, with its implication that we’re living with some of the finest, if not the finest, TV shows ever made, is becoming worn out through overuse. The idea has been endlessly discussed over the past few years, though producers continue to come up with outstanding cinematic long-form stories that make a strong case for the medium outshining film. I believe that on the whole, television is absolutely better than movies at the moment – if we’re talking about big-budget HBO dramas and smart BBC2 thrillers and binge-watched Netflix originals that keep you hooked on a story that is 13 hours long.

Still, that means television will inevitably encounter some of the problems that its older sibling has come across, and the weekend schedules are a perfect example. (Yes, I know, lots of people watch programmes on catch-up, but not as many as watch them when they’re actually on, yet.) TV’s Saturday and Sunday nights are Hollywood’s big sequel problem. It’s where the blockbusters and the franchises live, the shows that might be in with a chance of getting more than 10m viewers and the ones that trundle on with the might of habitual viewing behind them, regardless of quality: Strictly, Downton Abbey and The X Factor are not going anywhere for a long time, and newer, more innovative shows or formats are unlikely to get a look-in. It means the weekends are fundamentally boring, unless you surrender to the old familiars, or enjoy Grand Designs repeats and films that came out a decade ago.

So I was thrilled that You’ve Been Framed! (ITV, Saturday) is back for a new series, because it’s one of the big exceptions – a franchise that has evolved with time, manages to reflect the era that it inhabits, and remains solidly, reliably entertaining, often bettering what has gone before it. If You’ve Been Framed! was Batman, then the Lisa Riley era would be George Clooney in a plastic suit with intrusive nipples, while the current Harry Hill run is the top-notch Christopher Nolan trilogy. It’s easy to take this show for granted, partly because it’s been on for so long – a staggering 24 years – but largely because its content has never really changed, other the advent of the smartphone and its new portrait frame. (The £250 fee has never changed either, which is a kick in the teeth for inflation.)

This opening episode contained some of the YBF! perennials: drunk nans at weddings, amorous camels, dangerously unreinforced plastic furniture and overly confident exercise manoeuvres. I’ve seen them all in many different forms before, from different countries and in different decades, yet by the time the last clip had finished – a man hangs balloons over a freshly laid buffet, the chair wobbles, he falls on to the vol-au-vents, as the table collapses beneath him – my shoulders were shaking with happiness. When a concerned onlooker asks him, curiously, “Are you all right, Neil?”, it tipped me over the edge.

Humour like this is universal. I am suspicious of those who manage to keep a straight face when presented with people saying the wrong thing, getting tipsy and wobbling on to lampshades, cycling into rivers or misjudging the friendliness of a passing goat. With his smart narration, Harry Hill, who has been doing this for 11 years, adds a sophistication that isn’t strictly necessary but is always welcome. His TV Burp was the last truly essential show on the mainstream channels on Saturday nights and much of its tone lives on here. There are topical jokes, about Nigel Farage and Ukip, a promise of “as many laughs as Gabby Logan’s tax return”, and a genuinely surreal clip of a dog that barks at both ends, called A Dog That Barks At Both Ends. It isn’t quite as rich as TV Burp, but it is a perfectly adequate substitute.

Most of all, You’ve Been Framed! manages to work when it really should have been steamrollered by the internet. Producers have been trying to put YouTube on television for years, with increasingly desperate and embarrassing results. It’s best to ignore the abominable Alex Zane-presented Rude Tube, trust me, but even more recently, E4’s Virtually Famous mined viral clips from yesteryear to exactly no comic effect whatsoever. You’ve Been Framed! can survive because it staked a claim to that territory before YouTube even existed. It was there first. And given that I can no longer be bothered with the X Factor juggernaut or yet more tedious Downton preening, I’m extremely grateful for its survival.