would I lie to you

British comedy panel shows are probably one of my favourite things about living in the UK. When I sat down with my morning coffee to watch some Would I Lie to You? clips, I expected ridiculous stories, Bob Mortimer and a very good time. I didn’t expect to discover an American version and find it quite so painful.

I’d been living here for eight years by then, and these shows still felt like something particularly British to me. I loved the comedy and the personalities. With Would I Lie to You?, guests tell stories and the other team tries to decide whether they’re true or invented. That leaves plenty of room for somebody to make an entirely unreasonable claim sound possible.

I can believe almost anything from Bob Mortimer

One of the first stories involved a guest drunkenly climbing into bed with his father-in-law after the in-laws had been babysitting. I thought it could be true if he’d forgotten they were staying over, and it was revealed as true. It also made me wonder what my own story would be if I went on the show. I do enough embarrassing things that choosing just one could be difficult.

Then I found Bob Mortimer in the compilation. I love his style of comedy and think he’s lovely, but what makes him particularly good for this game is that almost anything seems possible. Somebody else saying they’d carried a pet owl around on a cushion would have got an immediate no from me. With Bob, I had to consider it.

His story became more and more unlikely as the team questioned him about caring for the owl. I didn’t believe they’d let him take the bird home, and the claim was eventually revealed as a lie. Even then, the fact that it was Bob had kept me wondering. I kind of aspire to be that sort of person, where nobody can immediately rule out an absurd story about you.

Greg Davies had another story about renting the bathroom in a student house and sleeping in the bathtub for a whole term. I thought an eighteen-year-old could make that sort of questionable decision. I’d rather have slept on the floor, but if cushions fitted the bath, I could almost understand it. I guessed it might be true. It wasn’t.

The winning is secondary

What I enjoy about these shows isn’t really the score. The winning means very little to me compared with the people and how they react to each other. While looking at a discussion about panel shows, I agreed with the comparison to Top Gear being more about its personalities than its cars.

When I first moved to the UK, I had no job and spent my days applying for work and getting rejected. I watched daytime television alongside that, including Top Gear repeats. I didn’t know who the presenters were, didn’t like cars and didn’t care about cars. I still loved the banter. That helped explain what I meant about enjoying the people more than the subject or competition.

I also had to acknowledge Whose Line Is It Anyway? when it came up in that discussion. I’d grown up watching the American version with my family, and I found it really nostalgic. I hadn’t watched much of its reboot. So when I talked about British panel shows feeling unfamiliar in North America, there was already an example I knew and loved that complicated that thought.

The American discovery was uncomfortable

A pop-up during the Greg Davies clip pointed me towards Would I Lie to You? USA. It was the first I’d heard of it. I understood that successful shows get adapted between countries, but this one made me unusually protective of the British version. Normally I tend to side with North America because it’s home. Not this time.

The clapping and laughing stood out straight away. It felt much more noticeable to me than in the British clips, although I wasn’t claiming to know how either version produced its audience sound. I read some comments, then watched a story about a dog humping a loaf of banana bread that was meant for brunch.

I immediately thought it was a lie. Surely a dog getting access to banana bread would eat it first? The story was revealed as true, so that was another guess I got wrong. But I didn’t enjoy the questioning or the jokes around it. I felt uncomfortable and had that awful secondhand embarrassment, even while recognising that the people on the show were trying.

A bad clip doesn’t stand for a country

I didn’t want that reaction to turn into a rant about Americans generally. Sometimes when I mention America online, people respond as though everything there and everyone there is terrible, even when they haven’t been. I think that’s unfair. Judging Americans from an uncomfortable television clip would be like judging all British people from a few unfunny or outdated British programmes.

I love the US and Americans, and I still found what I watched of this adaptation deeply uncomfortable. Both things can be true. I’d started out expecting a morning of favourite British comedy clips and ended up on a completely different detour.

Watch my Would I Lie to You reactions and the American detour.