‘I don’t think men or women should tune in. Single mums shouldn’t tune in,’ says Joanne McNally and Ed Gamble when I ask them who might be offended by their new show Unacceptable.
The premise is simple: six comedians intentionally try to be as provocative as possible by bringing their most offensive opinions to the table in a bid to try and swing the studio audience in their favour by being given the platform to say their piece.
‘There’s cancel culture and all that jazz, so this is a very satirical take on that,’ Joanne tells Metro. ‘It’s light-hearted, there’s no fascism.’
Romesh Ranganathan doesn’t think the Royal Family is paid enough; Katherine Ryan says all men should have vasectomies at birth; and Harriet Kemsley argues that single mums are lazy. To stress, she is a single mum.
Gamble is the show’s host, somewhat of a mediator between two rival teams captained by McNally on one side and Richard Ayoade on the other.
It’s a peculiar mix: three comedians with extremely different approaches to being funny: Gamble is the charming, witty conversationalist; McNally is razor-sharp, her punchy quick-wit completely unrivalled; and Ayoade is so unnervingly deadpan that he made it to the final two on Amazon Prime’s Last One Laughing without raising a single smile for the entire six hours.
A panel show lives and dies by the chemistry of its leading cast. McNally and Gamble have clearly become close; they can finish each other’s sentences like all best teammates do. Ayoade isn’t exactly known for being a press whore, but his absence is hard to ignore.
‘The line-up between hosts and team captains is so funny to me, because I don’t think you’d see any of us in a room outside of the show,’ Gamble begins, before noticing a glance from his co-star.
‘OK, we would be,’ he assures McNally. ‘I would be in a room with you, I might be occasionally at the BFI, so I might see Richard. But Joanne and Richard absolutely not.’
This was very much a baptism of fire for me
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‘No,’ McNally admits. ‘I still don’t know how to read Richard, and I don’t think he knows how to read me, but that’s hilarious, and I think that’s why it works.’
Gamble has become one of television’s biggest breakout stars since Off Menu, the podcast he hosts with best friend James Acaster, became a colossal success, welcoming Hollywood giants such as Robert De Niro, Jeff Goldblum and Kate Winslet into their ‘dream restaurant’ to talk listeners through their dream menu.
He appeared as a guest judge on Great British Menu in 2021 after Off Menu entered a new league of popularity in lockdown; then promoted to regular judge a year later. Now he hosts Traitors Uncloaked, a spin-off from The Traitors, which regularly pulls in significantly more numbers than rival reality series such as Love Island.
McNally’s popularity is also grounded in podcasts, again one she hosts with her best friend Vogue Williams, My Therapist Ghosted Me. Her overdue television career, however, is suddenly rising at a rapid rate.
Weeks before we’re talking, she’s just finished filming the second series of Celebrity Traitors, which will no doubt propel her to astronomically new levels of fame this autumn.
She says: ‘I remember Graham Norton said to me once, “You don’t do any telly. Is that your own choice, or lack of interest or lack of offers?” I wasn’t doing TV, and I think in a way it’s a good thing, because I went off and built my own little thing.’
Her own little thing has become quite enormous. This year alone, she sold enough tickets for Hammersmith Apollo that she could have filled Wembley Stadium, while her previous tour proudly holds the record for most alcohol sold at the London Palladium.
Finally, television is catching up. ‘We used to be chasing the audience that TV had,’ says McNally. ‘TV is chasing the audience that comics already have.’
No longer is she sitting on the bench as a stand-by for when comics have to pull out of a panel show at the last minute. She’s front and centre.
‘I haven’t done a lot of panel shows, so this was very much a baptism of fire for me. I remember I was booked to be an understudy for 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown for a whole series. You have to bring a prop, so I just kept getting the train up and down to Manchester with my baby, the ceramic head of a child.
‘I would get up there, I’d sit in a windowless room, eat Wagamama, and then we’d drive back home. I just never made it on the show. So you’re praying illness on the cast, you know? If someone could just get decapitated on the way into it, that’s my dream!’
Panel shows can feel very serious, very competitive, like a blood sport
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Unacceptable, though, they assure me, is more inclusive to rising comedians at a time when television has been criticised for refusing to take risks on new talent.
This series includes Vittorio Angeloni, who recently went viral for humiliating former Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt on The Last Leg, and Fatiha El-Ghorri, who is making huge waves with her cutting sets and frank reflections of being a hijab-wearing Muslim woman.
Still though, Gamble understands why channels are wary to book inexperienced comics. ‘There are a lot of panel shows where they don’t take risks and book newer people, which I also understand, but this show has definitely room and slots for newer comics. It can be a very overwhelming experience.
‘You definitely need some sort of experience with television, or experience on the circuit, and also to know people before you get into doing panel shows, because a three-hour studio record teaches you that if you throw something out early on and it doesn’t get anything, it doesn’t matter. You’ve just got to keep going. Whereas a newer comic might throw something out, not get anything, and then completely climb off.’
‘They’re too embarrassed, and it’s awful,’ McNally agrees. ‘The amount of inner dialogue going on, the self-loathing and the self-flagellation when you’re new to panel shows.
‘I was speaking to a comedian who said his first panel show, he went mute for 40 minutes, just had an out-of-body experience. They are weirdly pressurised. It’s weird to call comedy panel shows serious because, of course, they’re not, but for us they can feel very serious, very competitive, like a blood sport.’
Unacceptable is so clearly too silly to become competitive; in the first episode, it’s refreshing to see such a starry line-up not vying to be the loudest person in the room. As for the game itself, it plays to McNally’s greatest weakness – her gullibility. By her own admission, she’s so easily swayed by other opinions.
‘My manager moved my hotel once because it was near a Scientology centre, and they knew I’d wander in. They were like, “She’ll be up there with John Travolta trying to access the third level.”
‘I was very much convinced 9/11 was an inside job up until not that long ago.’
Unacceptable launches July 5 on TLC.