A Comedy Roast needs fierce heat

When a comedy format makes a leap across the Atlantic, we normally expect it to be a case of proven UK quality being translated to the US – and we Brits fear for the loss of the original sharp edges in the process. But next week, Channel 4 will buck this trend by producing the first British incarnation of an American format that embodies perhaps the most famously savage comedy anywhere in the world. A Comedy Roast takes its cue from the American institution of roasting, where a celebrity guest of honour gamely endures a series of hugely personal attacks from comics and showbiz colleagues. And they've managed to get some reasonably A-list names for the first run, in the shape of Bruce Forsyth, Chris Tarrant and Sharon Osbourne. Exactly how fierce the roasting will be remains to be seen, although advance reports suggest the shows will retain at least a little edge, with Tarrant's very public and bitter divorce not being spared humorous comment. But the new series (the brainchild of producer Will MacDonald, who should know all about public humiliation after his stint as Chris Evans's onscreen whipping boy in TFI Friday) will have to go some to compete with the lacerating standard of US roasts. Comedy Central's eviscerations of the likes of Pamela Anderson, William Shatner and Flavor Flav has made a star of the extortionately foul-mouthed Lisa Lampanelli , as well as jump-starting the career of Gilbert Gottfried. The latter passed into legend with his retelling of hoary joke "the aristocrats" at Hugh Hefner's roast in 2001 (inspiring the film of the same name), but his recent comic assault on Joan Rivers (and one highly specific part of her anatomy) provides a real benchmark for just how far American roasters will go – and what their guests will tolerate. Why do celebs put themselves through the roasting experience? Well, there are two good reasons why American stars sign up – although both indicate potential difficulties for the British reinterpretation. First, as Scott Capurro – a San Francisco-born, confrontational gay comic with experience of comedy on both sides of the Atlantic – explains, there's a big difference between celebrity culture here and in the US. "I think American journalists and newspapers harass celebrities a lot less, and they feel a lot more able to satirise themselves," Capurro explains. "I think Americans take themselves and their celebrities a little less seriously." Although splenetic attacks on celebrity culture aren't unknown in our comedy – with the likes of Bo! Selecta and Star Stories almost matching the Comedy Central roasts for exuberant crudity – the celebrities themselves aren't usually present. The nearest thing we currently have to the roasting experience in terms of public confrontation is probably Have I Got News For You, which over the years has played host to all sorts of big-name defenestrations (including that of its own former host ), but in what's usually a more elegant and judicious manner than that of your traditional roaster. The other reason celebs sign up to the US roasts is that they tap into a long-running tradition and showbusiness heritage that we simply don't have over here. This is a phenomenon that grew out of the glittery, exclusive environs of the Friars Club in New York, and the original roasts acted as an opportunity for the greats of variety such as Milton Berle , Don Rickles and Johnny Carson to salute each other. Modern roast victims know they're following in illustrious footsteps – if you're going to be made a fool of, at least you're the latest in a proud lineage of fools. Still, now that Tarrant, Osbourne and Forsyth have agreed to enter the roast hotseat, the biggest challenge to the roasters (which include first-class comics like Jack Dee and Sean Lock as well as Jonathan Ross and Louis Walsh) will be getting the tone right. Some of the least successful US roasts of recent years have suffered from too shrill and repetitive an approach from the roasters – William Shatner's is a prime example, with a seemingly neverending, never-varying series of jokes about George Takei's sexuality ultimately becoming a punishingly unfunny experience. Friars Club resident historian and roasting expert Barry Dougherty believes that the secret to being a great roaster is avoiding getting too mean. "They've got to traverse that very fine wire without falling, and hitting too raw a nerve, and just being very funny, so the guest of honour can say, you know what? You got me," he explains. "You can be mean, but some good has to come at the end of that punchline to make people enjoy it and not cringe. You don't want them cringing, you want them laughing. Otherwise you have just a bunch of schoolboys, school bullies in the schoolyard being mean to each other, and that's not what its about." Capurro agrees that if the UK roasters think that meanness alone is enough, then the format may struggle over here. "I fear that the fate of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy may curse English roasting. The UK version of Queer Eye was so knowing and petulant, as opposed to that in the US, which was slightly wry but also hopeful, like a good musical." However, the biggest concern may not be the cruelty of the roasters, but the complicity of the celebrities involved. There's no doubt that British audiences love seeing celebrities under attack (you don't need to see too many pictures of actresses' cellulite in the tabloids to work that out), but will it make a difference to see the victims laughing along, happily in on the joke? It may be that homegrown roasting isn't enough to sate the celebrated British tendency towards tall-poppy syndrome – that we'd prefer to see our celebrities brutally cut down, rather than given the coarse but ultimately harmless teasing a roast has come to provide. A Comedy Roast begins April 7 on Channel 4. The Comedy Central Roasts of Denis Leary, William Shatner and Flavor Flav are out on DVD now