Bored Gamers: Tell us a joke

Greg Marshall on the fine art of being hilarious

Have you ever been put on the spot and apropos of nothing been asked to ‘be funny’? Everyone who works in entertainment has, at some point, probably suffered the indignity of being expected to entertain on cue like a performing monkey. I have this issue each and every week. Admittedly it is a self inflicted issue rather than an impromptu baying audience, as I prepare to stare into numerous cameras and amuse the audience of the show Bored Gamers. Jim and I have been flattered by viewers telling us that we come across on television as naturally funny, with a good bond between us. This is all the more impressive when you consider what goes into the making of an episode.

There are many different segments on our show, but in their simplest form they can be divided into those auto-cued and those where we basically make it up as we go along. With the auto-cued segments, an argument can be made that we have the time to carefully script well rehearsed funny banter, however time is never on our side! The auto-cue script is usually done as the last thing before sleeping on Wednesday night. Not out of disorganisation, but because, throughout the week, we need to shoot and edit features and create a detailed studio cue sheet with precise timings before we know how long to allocate to auto-cued segments. The short of it is that we are often trying to be side-splittingly hilarious at 2am on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Sleep deprived and often a couple of bottles of wine in, we usually suffer the polar opposites of either finding little funny at this point, or literally everything, as we giggle incessantly and uncontrollably like schoolgirls.

“Sleep deprived and often a couple of bottles of wine in…”

The non auto-cued segments where we shoot the breeze whilst aiming to amuse are even harder to judge. Bearing in mind that we are up at 6am to be in the studio for a little after 7am (having gone to bed at the aforementioned 2am), we run around for a few hours setting up, punching glitching technology and drinking energy drinks before aiming for hilarity at Camera One. In fairness, though I think I am a reasonably funny guy, in these circumstances I feel Jim is thankfully entertaining enough for the both of us! I may sound whiny and ungrateful for the sake of journalistic content, but in truth, I love my job and look forward each week to shooting the show. Tune in this week to laugh along with us, or not, as the case may be!

Bored Gamers is an hour-long weekly show on all things gaming.

Tune in to see it on Latest TV at 9.30pm every Friday night.