Father and son presenting duo Bradley and Barney Walsh reckon series 2 of this second Gladiators revival effort will be tougher than ever, but Bradley once revealed the equivocality with which he sees the future of his other industry: comedy.
The Chase presenter has spent decades, on and off, in the public eye.
As such, he’s reached a point now where he can be selective about what work he accepts.
“I don’t think I can plate-spin,” he said in 2017. “I’ve turned loads of things down because I just can’t get the time to do it. I can’t devote the time to prepare.”
The Chase presenter discusses personal relationship with comedy
In 2023, around the time his miniseries Bradley Walsh’s Comedy Legends came out, the veteran comedian and TV presenter gave an interview in which he talks about his own personal journey with comedy.
He told the British Comedy Guide he’s got “so much more experience” than ever before. He’s been in the business for decades. For this reason, he’s a better host and interviewer than his past self would have been.
“What I’ve been through in the industry,” he tells the magazine, “ups and the downs… You can add certain aspects to it. You can add salience to the points made as well, you can join in the conversation as opposed to just interview and listen, and you can have banter back and forth with the interviewee.
“That’s been very good, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed that.”
But…
What about the future of the industry? With everything that’s changed over the course of a generation or two, what does his future hold? Bradley isn’t so sure.
Bradley Walsh reveals ambivalence over the future after experiencing ‘ups and downs’
“I am not sure you know,” Bradley says, when asked about whether or not he thinks the comedy world will continue to have “legends” like Bruce Forsyth and Des O’Connor.
“Really not sure.”
In the past, he explains, without the Internet, mobile phones and a selection of 300+ television channels, people only had access to a handful of famous faces. This meant that anyone who made it really made it. By virtue of the limited number of entertainment avenues available, they became “gigantic, gigantic stars”.
“Now,” however, “everyone is so much more accessible. When you can see comedy on TikTok, should I bother going to see them when they do these arena tours? That’s all new and that is all great, but are they going to remain? Are they going to become ‘legends’? I really don’t know.
“It’s hard to say. It’s hard to say, ‘Are they going to be remembered like Bruce Forsyth is when he was 90?’ People still talk about Bruce Forsyth. We know who he is. It’s quite extraordinary.
“Are they going to talk about me or maybe Michael McIntyre, or John Bishop or Frankie Boyle when we’re all 90? I don’t know. I doubt it very much.”
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