Peter Kay's Carshare - Audience Pleasures

• Same setting in the car - The audience becomes familiar with the setting and doesn't expect anything different.
• Main plot line each episode is resolved 
• Snowballing in each episode - A joke that keeps popping up during an episode, like in episode 1 where John gets urine on him and it becomes a joke that reoccurs during the episode.
• Transgressive pleasures - When some jokes are borderline offensive
• Anticipation - When you are anticipating what is going to happen in a certain situation
• Innuendos - Jokes that have sexual references in them. Such as the 'dogging' joke in episode 2 where Kayleigh misunderstood dog walking as 'dogging' when it has a completely different meaning.
• Same characters in each episode - The audience gets to recognise all the different characters like John, Kayleigh and 'New Ted'.
• The audience gets familiar with the episodes - They go to work, guess the year of a song, have work and go home. Although it may seem like a bland structure, the target audience can relate to it as they possibly have a similar routine of going to work.
• The audience gets used to the characters' personalities, like John's deep knowledge of songs and Kayleigh's unknown knowledge on slang words like 'dogging'.    
• The radio becomes familiar to the audience as it plays classic songs the would appeal to the target audience. Also, the parody radio adverts become more recognisable to the audience as they take mick out of similar sounding real radio adverts, making it relatable to the target audience.

          Episode 6

In episode 6, quite a lot of audience pleasures take place. For instance, a situation reoccurs from an older episode where Kayleigh is jealous of Rachel talking to John. The joke then carries on when they are in the car and the audience recognises that this has happened before in an earlier episode. This also suggests at the start of a possible relationship between the two, but learn more about this later in the episode.
One part in episode 6 is when John and Kayleigh talk about Cannon and Ball. Cannon and Ball is comedic duo who were extremely popular in the  

Peter Kay

Peter Kay

Early Days

Kay's first TV project was in a 1997 episode of New Voices, a comedy series which showcased rising talent. His episode, "Two Minutes", written by Johanne McAndrew, saw him play a getaway driver as two of his mates attempted to rob a pub of its takings. He won a Royal Television Society award for best newcomer for his episode on Channel 4's Comedy Lab.

Phoenix Nights

Phoenix Nights, which was an immediate hit. Set in a newly refurbished social club run by wheelchair-bound Brian Potter, the first series was filmed in part at St Gregory's Social Club in Farnworth, Greater Manchester, where the exterior, hallways and function suite were used. This is where Peter Kay's career began to sky rocket.

Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere

In 2004, Kay followed the success with Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere, a spin-off of Phoenix Nights. The show featured the bouncer characters from the show – played by Kay and Paddy McGuinness.

Stage Shows

2000–2011: 

Kay has released several DVDs of live performances, including Live at the Top of the Tower, Live at the Bolton Albert Halls (which holds the record as biggest selling British stand-up DVD), Peter Kay: The Live Collections (the previous two combined), Peter Kay: Live at Manchester Arena, and Peter Kay Live – The Tour That Didn't Tour Tour (which was recorded during his fifteen-night sold-out run at The O2 in London).

Present

Since then, he has done voice acting, parody songs and guest appearances on shows on the BBC.

Peter Kay's Carshare

Situation Comedy

Peter Kay's Carshare

Peter Kay's Carshare is a British sitcom which stars Peter Kay and 

Sian Gibson. The sitcom has won numerous awards for best comedy.

Who is it written by? 

The series is written by Peter Kay, Sian Gibson, Paul Coleman and 

Tim Reid.

When is it on?

It was first available on BBC Iplayer as a complete series and became the most watched series to be released as a box set. Because it was on BBC Iplayer anyone interested could watch it. Then it was broadcasted on BBC One on a friday night at 9:30, this would mean teenagers and adults would be able to watch it while kids would usually be asleep.

What are the codes and conventions of a situation comedy?

• The episodes are usually 30 minutes long.
• The same characters re-appear each episode.
• They are usually in the same setting. 
• They are usually situation led, various mishaps will occur and the episode will be based on that situation.
• The primary plotline is resolved in each episode.
• Sometimes the characters in the show will have cliched saying they will say in every episode.

Viewing Figures

Peter Kay's Carshare became the highest-rated new sitcom to premiere on any channel since 2011.

The figures show 6.85 million people watched its opening episode on BBC One on television, while another 2.5 million viewed it on BBC Iplayer when it was available. 

Critic Review 

Grace Dent said:

Statisticians could prove this with a graph. Gosh, I want to laugh. And many times while watching a celebrated writer's latest labour of love a willing smile will dance around my mouth. Still, a genuine LOL (as the hip things say) is rare.

But I laughed over and over again, loudly and gracelessly, during BBC1's Car Share, Peter Kay's new, pared-down comedy project. Curmudgeonly John (Kay) has been allotted a chipper colleague, Kayleigh (Sian Gibson), as his car-share buddy as part of a corporate bid to save on parking spaces. The rest is simply wittering on. The complete series premiered on iPlayer, drawing a record 2.8 million viewers. I gobbled up the whole series in one afternoon. One serving wasn't nearly enough.

Episodes
The first series contained 6 half-an-hour episodes. The first episode was aired on the 29th of April 2015. There was also a one off Christmas special episode. Sitcoms tend to be short, especially when compared to dramas which are usually an hour long. Sitcoms usually contain comedy that pushes the boundaries and so if the episodes were longer then the humour could get repetitive. So, by keeping it short, the series keeps it's comedic value.      

Audience Pleasures

TV Comedy: Audience Pleasures

The type of audience pleasures you need to write about in the exam include:

• narrative pleasures such as those of narrative resolution, 
• character identification, snowballing narrative, suspense, comedy, and so on
• pleasures of recognition, familiarity and anticipation
• pleasures of difference-within-repetition
• performance unpredictability and spontaneity
• transgressive pleasures
• specific pleasures associated with performers or personalities.

Walliams and Friend

Walliams and Friend

Walliams and Friend is a British sketch show that is on BBC One.

Audience

Who commissioned the programme?
Walliams and Friend  commissioned by Shane Allen and Gregor Sharp for the BBC and is being made by King Bert Productions.

Who produced it?
The show is being produced by Sarah Fraser for King Bert and directed by Matt Lipsey.

The target audience:
The target audience for Walliams and Friend is teenagers and adults. Due to the adult humor in the sketch show, it is not something kids would watch. The humor contained in the show can be quite sexual sometimes and so it appeals to a much older audience. Also, each sketch show has a new comedian in it, and some of these comedians were extremely popular in the 90's which the older audience will remember, attracting them to watch the show. 

What time and channel is it on?
Walliams and Friend is on at 9:30pm on BBC One. It is on at this time because after 9pm in the UK, strong language and adult humor can be shown on television. As we know, Walliams and Friend uses a lot of adult humor and so the audience is much older as children would have gone to bed. By putting it on BBC One, a mainstream channel, the show is available to anyone and it can reach out to a much broader audience than if it was on a channel only available to people who have paid for it.

Is it on after the Watershed?
Walliams and Friend is on after the Watershed as it uses more adult and inappropriate language. Children would have gone to bed by 9:30 and so the show is able to air on the BBC to an older audience.

Audience Demographic Categories