Last week, the comedians Joanne McNally and Grace Campbell posted a video of themselves hungover, lying on sun loungers on a balcony in Ibiza, watching YouTube clips of Katherine Ryan on Live at the Apollo on an iPhone.
It was only an Instagram story – the primary medium through which these two stars have forged their careers – but it felt like a mix of comedy worlds. McNally and Campbell have broken out at a time when podcasting, short-form video, Taskmaster and social media have replaced Live at the Apollo as the ticket to stand-up stardom. Ryan, one of the most ubiquitous and successful comedians in Britain, who laid the path for them 15 years earlier, probably wouldn’t have a career without it.
This week, the BBC announced that it is scrapping Live at the Apollo after 22 years. After brutal cuts, especially across its News divisions, the director-general warned that further culls would be coming, this time in Entertainment. The revived Blankety Blank and Celebrity Mastermind are also among the first casualties, but it is Live at the Apollo’s putting out to pasture that for many people is a sign of cultural decline and the BBC’s waning commitment to comedy – one of its, and our, greatest exports.
