Comedian Reveals His TV Show Was Canceled: James Acaster Speaks Out

Channel 4 is not moving forward with Jame Acaster’s new game show People Person. The series has been scrapped at the broadcaster after “everything went wrong” during the “disastrous” pilot episode, the comedian revealed.

“It was three hours of filming and I’d say everything went wrong that could have gone wrong,” Acaster revealed on the Always Be Comedy podcast.

Based on a formula Acaster created for the show Question Team, People Person featured a panel of comedians who were tasked with guessing which person from a line-up of people was the answer to each question. The show heavily involved the audience, who played for a chance to win a share of the prize fund. The series was first announced to be in the works in June, and the pilot episode filmed in Glasgow over the summer.

While Acaster, who is best known for co-hosting the Off Menu podcast with Ed Gamble and has appeared on Taskmaster, said he “absolutely loved” the show, he said things didn’t quite go as planned, leading to the show’s early cancellation.

“It went from having four members of the public and four panelists to having 20 members of the public on stage behind me as well, who are also playing the game,” Acaster recalled. “And those four members of the public who are guessing… and the studio audience was there and [they had] things that they had to vote with to say what they thought the right answer was.”

James added: “At one point I said to the audience, ‘I think what they should do is just take these three hours, cut them up into six half hours in real time and put it out as a series. I’ve never seen them do that before. This is absolutely what we should do, this has been so f–ing nuts.”

During one point of filming, Acaster said a wrestler broke a sugar glass vase too quickly, resulting in cuts to his hands. He required first aid and the ordeal led to retakes. The scene reportedly left comic Phil Wang to erupt into a fit of laughter to the point that he had “tears streaming” down his face. During another point in filming, comic Larry Dean’s light-up cube failed to illuminate.

Acaster said Channel 4 ultimately opted not to move forward with the program due to the issues the pilot faced. The network hasn’t addressed the show’s reported cancellation at this time.

When People Person was first announced, Channel 4’s head of reality and entertainment, Steven Handley, and commissioning editor Cimran Shah described the show as “a simple, scalable and clever concept with stellar talent attached and a clear opportunity to develop a new generation of channel defining comedians.”