
We Need Answers
- TV panel show
- BBC Four
- 2009 - 2010
- 16 episodes (2 series)
Mark Watson, Tim Key and Alex Horne lead a comic quiz show where the questions come from a txt messaging answering service. Stars Mark Watson, Tim Key and Alex Horne.
Episode menu
Series 2, Episode 2 - Love
Broadcast details
- Date
- Tuesday 8th December 2009
- Time
- 10pm
- Channel
- BBC Four
- Length
- 30 minutes
Cast & crew
Mark Watson | Host / Presenter |
Tim Key | Host / Presenter |
Alex Horne | Host / Presenter |
Vanessa Feltz | Guest |
Simon Bird | Guest |
Mark Watson | Writer |
Tim Key | Writer |
Alex Horne | Writer |
Day Macaskill | Script Editor |
Nick Wood | Director |
Simon London | Producer |
Jo Sargent | Executive Producer |
Rachel Springett | Edit Producer |
George Sawyer | Edit Producer |
Graham Barker | Editor |
Justin James | Editor |
Ravinder Takher | Production Designer |
Will Charles | Lighting Designer |
Alex Horne | Graphics |
Ian Locker | Production Manager |
Video
Fiddly Questions
Tim Key asks Vanessa Feltz and Simon Bird some questions.
Featuring: Alex Horne, Tim Key, Mark Watson, Simon Bird & Vanessa Feltz.
Press
We Need Answers is now in its second series. This is an excruciatingly student-y comedy quiz hosted by Mark Watson, Tim Key and Alex Horne, which was transferred to television after proving a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe. Two celebrities (in this week's case, Vanessa Feltz and The Inbetweeners' Simon Bird) are quizzed on themed questions originally sent by members of the public to the text message answering service. Watson is the host and link to the audience, Key is the quizmaster (who is spat out into the studio on a railed leather armchair through a concealed door), and Horne provides supportive music cues, sound effects, action-replays, and homespun graphics from a laptop.
It's incredibly cheap, very silly, and not particularly funny. I suspect that by crossing over into my 30s, this kind of comedy has stopped looking hilariously anarchic and intellectual-but-daft, to just become annoying and puerile. That said, the trio behind it are aged 29-33, so maybe it's just me who's stonily bored by Shooting Stars-esque absurdity, particularly when it's in the guise of a cheapo '70s series. We Need Answers ran at the Fringe for two successful years, but I'm guessing it helps if you're a half-drunk festivalgoer attending the show in a live format. On television, it's another matter. There's a distance that Watson, Key and Horne can't bridge.
Dan Owen, Dan's Media Digest, 10th December 2009