Hello from Jake Yapp (and 1976)

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For one generation, shows like The Generation Game, 3-2-1 and The Price is Right are synonymous with great entertainment. For another, they’re a somewhat baffling glimpse into another era. Comedian and broadcaster Jake Yapp has taken his love of 1970s gameshows and used it to create Cornershop Showdown – a new, live, highly-interactive gameshow where members of the audience compete for appalling prizes.

But it’s also a parody – Jake Yapp has taken the lampooning skills he honed making ‘Radio 4 in Four Minutes’ and his takedowns of ‘Sunday Brunch’ and ‘This Morning’ for Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe, and applied them to game shows in an unflinching but affectionate send-up.

Jake says:

‘If people are not particularly enjoying being in 2026 right now, this show gives them an hour off, letting them travel back in time to 1976, where we can all enjoy the simple, uncomplicated and innocent fun of entertainment like the Black and White Minstrel Show, or referring to women as ‘Dolly-Birds’, before realising quite quickly we’d quite like to get back to 2026 as fast as humanly possible please.’

It’s ten years since Jake Yapp last did a full-length live show:

‘I wouldn’t have returned to live performing if I hadn’t created this show. I have always struggled with the one-sidedness of stand-up – I’ve never been comfortable with monologuing to an audience in a somewhat dictatorial way. But this show is all about play – it’s a game that everybody gets to play together’.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT CORNERSHOP SHOWDOWN

“The best thing I’ve seen in a couple of years”

“Absolutely brilliant”

“An obscene education in the filth and horror of the 1970’s – I loved it”

ABOUT JAKE YAPP:

Jake Yapp came to prominence with Radio Four in Four Minutes, which garnered over 100k YouTube hits and lead to his own Radio 4 series, Jake Yapp’s Media Circus. He has written and performed on Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe (BBC2), 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown (C4), The Now Show (BBC Radio 4) and Newsnight (BBC2).

WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT JAKE YAPP:

‘…someone riffing about nothing at a million miles an hour as if their life genuinely depends on it’ – Stuart Heritage, The Guardian

‘Hilarious’ – Danny Wallace

‘clarity, intelligence, and brilliant comic instinct’ – Jamie P Robson, Broadway Baby

’Funny and smart in ways this paragraph cannot possibly convey’ – CHARLIE BROOKER