This spring, multi-award-winning stand-up comedian FRANK SKINNER returns to BBC TWO with a brand new topical comedy series, Frank Skinner’s Opinionated. Each week FRANK will be joined by two fellow comedians and, most importantly, a studio audience to unpick the week’s most talked about news stories. The show will tour the country stopping off in Belfast, Norwich, Manchester, Glasgow and London.
As with any topical show it is impossible to predict the news stories that will have us all gossiping around the coffee machine, but expect the big stories on our newspaper front pages, websites, radio stations and TV news shows to jostle for position on the Frank Skinner’s Opinionated floor.
FRANK currently writes a weekly column for The Times; hosts Absolute Radio’s Saturday morning’s flagship show, whose spin-off podcasts were the station’s most downloaded of 2009 with over 1.6 million downloads; is filming a documentary for BBC Four investigating the largely unknown life of GEORGE FORMBY; and is reuniting with DAVID BADDIEL to exclusively present a series of shows from the World Cup in South Africa for Absolute Radio, four years after they launched the World Cup’s first ever podcasts which were downloaded by over 1 million listeners and nominated for a Sony Radio Academy Award. Recently FRANK completed the triple-extended, sell-out Credit Crunch Cabaret in London’s West End, offering recession-hit Londoners the chance to see some of the biggest names in live entertainment including MICHAEL McINTYRE, AL MURRAY - THE PUB LANDLORD, CONNIE FISHER, HUGH CORNWELL (THE STRANGLERS) and IAN BROUDIE (LIGHTNING SEEDS) for just £10 a ticket; and authored a Panorama special on taste and decency as well as hosting Have I Got News For You? and Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
FRANK’S previous TV shows include The Frank Skinner Show, which is widely credited as setting the tone for the modern comedic chat show and ran for nine years, attracting 11 million viewers at its peak. It was responsible for some of the most talked about entertainment exclusives in chat show history including BRITNEY SPEARS’ revelation that she was stood up by PRINCE WILLIAM, MYLENNE KLASS’ tearful recollection of the public backlash following Hear’Say’s break-up, and TARA PALMER TOMKINSON’S infamous interview which directly led to her drug rehabilitation. He has written two books, the first of which was Frank Skinner, the top selling autobiography of 2002, spending 46 weeks in The Sunday Times Bestseller List. His second book, the Richard & Judy Book Club Award-winning Frank Skinner On The Road chronicled his 2007, sell-out, return to stand-up a decade after his then record-breaking 6,000-seater gig at Battersea Power Station. With DAVID BADDIEL, FRANK created and presented Fantasy Football and Baddiel & Skinner Unplanned while also, alongside the LIGHTNING SEEDS, attained three number one hits with the football anthem ‘Three Lions’.
ends
Frank Skinner’s Opinionated starts on 16th April 2010 on BBC TWO
For more information please contact: Jo Cross or Dan Lloyd at Avalon on 020 7598 7222 / joc@avalonuk.com or danl@avalonuk.com
WHAT THE PRESS SAID ABOUT…
THE FRANK SKINNER SHOW
“The best entertainment show around is The Frank Skinner Show, not least because the host is the most naturally funny person on television. He might even be the most naturally funny person in the world.”
Jaci Stephen, Mail On Sunday
“Comedian Frank is the King of water-cooler TV - the kind of show we all love to talk about the next day at work.”
The News of the World
“What Skinner does best: relaxed, easy, cheeky chat that occasionally discomforts his guests but is never cheap.”
Metro
“There is something refreshingly laidback about Frank Skinner’s interview technique. Which could explain why his comedy chat show regularly manages to reap 11 million viewers.”
The Guardian
“It would be hard to dislike Frank Skinner. He is easy-going, self-deprecating and incapable of keeping a straight face. More than ten million viewers regularly watch his shows, and his guests usually end up having a good time, which adds to the general air jollity.”
The Times
“As chat show hosts go, Frank gets away with murder with his no-holds-barred style of interviewing. So it’s a dead cert that whoever graces his sofa this series, it will make for must-see viewing.”
TV Quick
FRANK SKINNER’S CREDIT CRUNCH CABARET
“Tickets for Skinner's cabaret cost a tenner - which is hard to sneeze at, even in the chilly depths of this discontented winter. …Skinner is the ideal compere for this event: a comic everyman and a great ad-libber.”
Brian Logan, The Guardian
“An ambitious enterprise and the opening night did not disappoint. Skinner was in his element as compere, tack-sharp and topical… deserves a financier-sized bonus for his efforts… one would have to be clinically depressed not to enjoy an evening like this.”
Bruce Dessau, Evening Standard
FRANK SKINNER’S RETURN TO STAND-UP
“Behind the casual delivery this was one of the most tightly structured stand-up performances I have ever seen, full of back-references, mock spontaneity and subtle pacing…Best and most uncharacteristic of all, however, was his closing tour de force, a spleen-venting confessional about obsessiveness, which ended with Skinner flat on the floor and the audience blown away. Not merely a comedy gig, a masterclass.”
Bruce Dessau, Evening Standard
“He prowls the NIA stage with as much spunk as any of the rock gods that play here, his new gold tooth glinting out from the three megascreens high above the stage…Skinner marshals his material brilliantly, interacting with the crowd or launching into set pieces as if it were all part of the same spontaneous thought process. He’s one of the few comics who can play a room this big because, like Billy Connolly or Victoria Wood, his language is so evocative: “like a lizard’s inner thigh,” he says of his laugh lines. One man and a mike becomes a vivid visual experience.”
Dominic Maxwell, The Times
“The pay-of to one blue anecdote elicited such hard laughter, I thought I’d developed lockjaw. Yet Skinner is far more than a smut-merchant. There’s a sharp cultural observation in his comparison of entertainers churning out anti-Hitler ditties for mass consumption during the Second World War and Skinner’s own George Formby-style Osama Bin Laden (sample lyric: ‘He had one big hit, then he went away/like a terrorism Macy Gray’) which, feels Skinner, ‘wouldn’t work on The Lottery Show’.”
Mark Wareham, The Mail on Sunday
“This show is a timely reminder of just why the Black Country comic stood out from the crowd in the first place. Welcome back Frank.”
Alan Chadwick, Metro
“Only a curmudgeon would fail to be impressed by this cracking comeback.”
Dominic Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph
“Fun-time Frankie’s got his mojo back - and is back on scintillating form. Skinner is one of those acts you suspect was always destined to be a comedian. His style is so natural and relaxed, that engaging 3,000 people comes as second nature. Plus he lives - or at least lived - the sort of reckless life that’s sure to throw up a rich catalogue of embarrassing anecdotes ready to be shared with an eager audience. Skinner knows his demographic: the lads shouting encouragement from the stalls as if they were on the terraces. His appeal, though, is wider than that. His anecdotes are raucously hilarious, his charm palpable and his mischievous spirit as lively as ever. Welcome back, Frank.”
Steve Bennett, Chortle
FRANK SKINNER ON THE ROAD
“A fascinating insight into the world, and the insecure mind, of a stand-up comedian…this is a real, honest account of life on the road. And you can’t expect more from a tour diary than that.”
Steve Bennett, Chortle
“Skinner is insightful, erudite and, naturally, funny when dissecting the craft of writing and performing successful stand-up comedy.”
Miranda Collinge, Esquire
“Juicy insight into the inner workings of the job, weaved in with perceptive, original takes on fame, money, love, ageing and god.”
Lottie Moggach, thelondonpaper
“Quite possibly the best book about stand-up ever written...it’s a staggeringly honest account of the last two years of his life during which time he fell in love and decided to hit the road with a stand-up show some ten years after his last performance. Detailing the intricate way in which a stand-up tries and tests material to create a winning set, it’s even more informative than Seinfeld’s seminal documentary Comedian….You’re worth every penny, Frank.”
James Mullinger, GQ
“Unfailingly honest, Skinner is funny whether talking about male sexuality, dying on stage or just growing old.”
FHM
“There are plenty of comedian memoirs this year… The pick of the bunch is probably Frank Skinner on the Road (Century, £18.99), which distinguishes itself by being a) unusual, b) funny, and c) actually written by the person named on the cover. Skinner penned a surprisingly good memoir several years ago; this book is an account of his return to stand-up after a 10-year break. Can he still cut it? Skinner's obvious models here are Jerry Seinfeld's movie Comedian and Steve Martin's memoir Born Standing Up. But where Seinfeld and Martin let light in on magic, Skinner seems hell-bent on letting in darkness. I cannot recall a book that so entertainingly lays bare the neediness, self-consciousness and weirdness of the professional comic's life. His one-liners are immaculate, too: "In Aldershot…they laughed like Hitler laughed: not very often and for all the wrong reasons."”
Andy Miller, Daily Telegraph
AVALON TELEVISION
Avalon Television is one of the leading producers of award-winning comedy and light entertainment programmes in the UK. Founded in 1993, the independent production house supplies television programming to all the British terrestrial channels and the leading cable and satellite stations, in addition to content for radio broadcasters.
Recent television productions include: the quadruple-BAFTA and triple British Comedy Award-winning Harry Hill’s TV Burp (ITV1); Russell Howard’s Good News, BBC THREE’s highest ever rating entertainment series, written and presented by the multi-award-winning comic and Mock The Week star; Al Murray’s Happy Hour (ITV1) - the British Comedy Award winning peak-time entertainment show; and three series of the Royal Television Society and Rose D’Or award-winning sitcom Not Going Out (BBC ONE).
Avalon Television also produces radio, with recent projects including: BBC Radio 5 Live’s 7 Day Sunday hosted by CHRIS ADDISON with regular guests SARAH MILLICAN and ANDY ZALTZMAN; Yes it’s the Ashes, ANDY ZALTZMAN’s topical look at the ashes series; Dave Gorman’s Sunday morning show for Absolute Radio; and The Frank Skinner Show, Absolute Radio’s Saturday morning’s flagship show, whose spin-off podcasts were the station’s most downloaded of 2009 with over 1.6 million downloads.
OTHER SHOW CREDITS
The series is produced by PAUL McGETTIGAN. Executive Producers are JON THODAY and RICHARD ALLEN-TURNER.
