Chat Shows

The chat show is one of light entertainment's most successful and most enduring formats. This programme takes in everything from tearful celebs and transatlantic flights to fake guests and drunken brawls, from the Gestapo-like questioning on Face to Face to Jerry Springer's 'prostitutes v pimps', showing just how the chat show format has entertained and influenced the emotional make-up of the British public. It explores how the chat show often gives rise to some of the most controversial and stimulating TV ever and traces the evolution of the format from Steve Allen and Johnny Carson to Graham Norton and Paul O'Grady. Plus, there is a look at the explosion of 'confessional' TV and how, after the cynical celebrity plugging of the 80s, producers were forced to look to the revolutionary changes afoot in the US in a bid to save the format. The programme also shows how the chat show has evolved, why the public now look for something a little bit extra from their celebrity interviews, how the comedy chat shows like Mrs Merton became every bit as successful as the genre that provided their comedy, and asks what the next evolution of the chat show will bring.