An Audience with... was a British entertainment television show produced by London Weekend Television, in which a host, usually a singer or comedian, performed for an invited audience of celebrity guests, interspersed with questions from the audience, in a light hearted revue/tribute style.
History
The show's title began as An Audience with Jasper Carrott, a normal six-part television series for the comedian, his first television show, broadcast in 1978, produced by London Weekend Television. From 1980 onwards, the show then changed into An Audience with..., with one-off special guest hosts performing in front of celebrity audiences. The show was traditionally broadcast on ITV on Saturday nights, while some shows in the 1980s were broadcast on Channel 4. The show has been commissioned at varying intervals, with ten shows broadcast in the 1980s, followed by twenty in each in the decades of the 1990s and 2000s. From 1994 there were at least one and often multiple shows broadcast per year, with the exception of 2000 and 2003. Some hosts appeared multiple times. Dame Edna Everage was host three times, while Freddie Starr, Ken Dodd, Joan Rivers, Shirley Bassey, Al Murray and Donny Osmond were all asked to return once. One show, for Jeremy Beadle, was hosted posthumously in 2008. In 2010, a five-part highlights series of the show, 30 Years of An Audience With, was broadcast on ITV. More recent shows focused more on musicians and singers rather than comedians - the last comedian given An Audience with... was Al Murray in 2007.
''An Audience with Jasper Carrott''
The An Audience With title was first used in a television series produced by London Weekend Television for the comedian Jasper Carrott, which aired for six episodes in 1978.
''An Audience with...''
From 1980, the show took on a format where a special guest would host a one off show in front of a celebrity audience, and have their name appended to the title. Dame Edna Everage was the first host of An Audience with... in 1980. The show had numerous hosts since then, mostly comedians and singers. Occasionally, pop groups, actors and television presenters also hosted the show. One-off hosts in the series have been an episode hosted by a puppet, Sooty, by the cast of a television show, the ITV soap opera Coronation Street, and by a sportsperson, the boxer Lennox Lewis. The Spice Girls were the first pop group to host the show, in 1997. In 2006, An Audience with Take That was the first time the show was performed live, continued with the next show, An Audience with Lionel Richie. Hosts were often joined on staged by special guests. Singer Lionel Richie was joined by Westlife, Lulu was joined in a duet with former husband Maurice Gibb, the Bee Gees performed with Boyzone, Ricky Martin was joined by Kylie Minogue, and Take That performed Relight My Fire with Lulu. All round entertainer Des O'Connor was joined on stage by Martine McCutcheon, and dueted with Lionel Richie in a version of "Three Times a Lady". Comedian Ronnie Corbett had as his special guest his longtime comedy partner, Ronnie Barker. Comedian hosts often involved audience members on stage, such as Brian Conley's sword and card trick on Christine Hamilton performed blindfolded, Freddie Starr's act of seemingly throwing knives at a blindfolded Garry Bushell. Comedians will also interact with the audience, with Freddie Starr throwing maggots over Faith Brown, and Al Murray, in his Pub Landlord persona, spilt drinks over them. Singing based shows also sometimes involved comic relief, with Frank Skinner appearing in drag as one of Lulu's backing singers, and Kylie Minogue being joined on stage for a romantic duet with Kermit the Frog.
''An Audience Without... Jeremy Beadle''
After the death of the television practical joker Jeremy Beadle on 30 January 2008, ITV decided to commission An Audience Without... Jeremy Beadle, to celebrate his best work and raise money for some of his favourite charities. Broadcast on 16 May 2008, the show was hosted by Chris Tarrant, and included the results of an ITV public vote choosing his top-5 best ever pranks from his show, Beadle's About. This episode was produced by Talent Television.
''30 Years of An Audience With''
In 2010, ITV broadcast 30 Years of An Audience With, looking back at the history of the series, with interviews from past guests, and clips from old shows. The show was broadcast in five hour-long episodes, from 17 July 2010 to 14 August 2010. Episode 1 looked back at the shows featuring Dame Edna Everage, The Spice Girls, Bob Monkhouse, Joe Pasquale and Donny & Marie, and featured interviews including Dame Edna, Mel B, Emma Bunton and Joe Pasquale. Episode 2 looked at the shows hosted by Ken Dodd, Lionel Richie, Brian Conley, Victoria Wood, and Lulu, with interviews from all five hosts. Episode 3 looked at the shows hosted by Freddie Starr, The Bee Gees, Joan Rivers, Bruce Forsyth and Ricky Martin, with interviews including Robin Gibb, Joan Rivers and Bruce Forsyth. Episode 4 looked at the shows hosted by Dame Shirley Bassey, Take That, Sir Cliff Richard, Jackie Mason and Jimmy Tarbuck, with interviews from Jackie Mason and Jimmy Tarbuck. Episode 5 looked at the shows hosted by Des O'Connor, Al Murray, Ronnie Corbett, Kylie Minogue and Michael Bublé with interviews from O'Connor, Murray and Corbett.
In June 1993, Les Dawson was due to record an edition of An Audience with..., but died a fortnight prior to the planned recording. On the 20th anniversary of the comedian's untimely death, ITV decided to mark the occasion with the use of a technology which gave the illusion that he was on stage. The chief executive of Musion Systems the company that provided the technology, told the Today programme's Sarah Montague that "it's not actually a hologram but the world perceives what we do as holograms, so we call it holograms." He explained how the technology allows people "to appear as though on stage".
In 2007, selected An Audience with... shows were individually released on DVD. Prior to this, the October 1985 show featuring Billy Connolly had been issued on its own, both in VHS format and on DVD. Virgin Video released the extended uncut studio version, coming in at apx 78 minutes, instead of the later 50 minute television version. On 14 November 2005, Network released An Audience with Dame Edna Everage which featured all three appearances, across two discs and became a bestseller.
