Q4b) Discuss in detail how one comedy programme offers audience pleasures. Give examples from the programme. QI offers various audience pleasures. One pleasure is the pleasure of identification: the audience can identify with the different characters on the show. Alan Davies often gives silly answers (such as in the Justice episode where he talks about someone being hung for stealing a bicycle). The audience looks down upon Alan Davies, but also identifies with his silliness and ignorance. We also identify Stephen Fry as a clever, witty character who we look up to, such as when he introduces the characters with witty phrases. These archetypes are kept the same through all of the episodes, helping with the identification. This is also an example of how the programme gives the audience pleasure from familiarity. There are lots of things that are repeated in episodes to build familiarity. This includes the different rounds, the use of a silly buzzer for Alan (in the Justice episode it is the sound of a guillotine), the way Alan often answers “blue whale” but never gets it right, and the way the programme always starts and ends with the same mastershot. The familiarity makes the programme more comforting for the audience and encourages them to feel part of the programme. Another way they make us feel part of the programme is by the way they use the camerawork. They use shot/reverse-shot to make us feel part of the group and when someone is talking they show another person listening. This makes us feel like we are there and in the group. The programme also gives the audience pleasures from the variety and changes each episode. Each episode has a different theme (such as Justice) and this adds variety. The guests also change to add variety (in Justice they have Jason Manford and Brian Cox, who is not funny). The mix of variety and predicatable familiarity is one reason the audience like the programme. Another reason the audience like it is because we learn things from the programme, so it’s fun and we learn at the same time. The type of humour is witty and has lots of references to things the audience would be interested in, and that is another pleasure.
Q4b (Audience Pleasures). You need to: 1. Focus on the number of programmes in the question 2. Give details of a range of specific audience pleasures (4-5 different pleasures) 3. Support your points with specific, detailed examples of moments of audience pleasures from more than one specific episode 4. Give the names of the episodes 5. Discuss how the programme addresses the target audience, linking examples to audience pleasures 6. Compare/ contrast 2 programmes (where Q requires)