Stephen Colbert cannot wait to smell viewers again, The Late Show announces live audience return
TV Features Stephen Colbert
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ends its live audience hiatus after one year and 205 episodes. Colbert will host his late night political comedy show at the Ed Sullivan Theatre in front of a full audience on June 14.
“Over the last 437 days, my staff and crew (and family!) have amazed me with their professionalism and creativity as we made shows for an audience we couldn’t see or hear,” the host said. “I look forward to once again doing shows for an audience I can smell and touch.”
This time last year, The Late Show strictly stuck to a virtual format from Colbert’s home, eventually bringing on guests at production offices in South Carolina, and then back to its home base in New York City. Colbert ushered in his first COVID show from home straight from his bathtub, also picking up some bragging rights as the first late night host to return to the air after the pandemic started. It’s expected that other late night hosts will follow suit and transition to shows in front of audiences again.
Per the state of New York, all of the audience members will be fully vaccinated and show proof upon entry of the theatre, and masks will be optional. Staff and crew will be closely monitored for symptoms of illness and tested prior to returning to work.
16 Comments
I’ve gotten used to no audience talk shows, and frankly I like em a lot better. Most audiences are a pack of morons.Only thing I’ve missed really is in-studio guests as Zoom convos are awkward.
Colbert and Seth Meyers have both evolved their shows in ways that I hope stick around post-pandemic. I’ve enjoyed how they’ve both loosened up a bit and incorporated their rapport and banter with their staff into the show. Colbert in particular is much better when he drops the “host” act and behaves more casually.
Yeah, I think Colbert really captured that “we’re all going a little nuts in quarantine, and that’s okay” vibe over the last year. His intimate, very loose shows have been a lot of fun. I, too, hope he can keep some of that “to hell with it” energy now that he’ll be in front of an audience again.
I love the intimacy of the little office setup he has right now. I would love it if they maybe kept the desk for the opening segment of the show, and then moved over into a den type of setup for the interviews (much like Conan had in the most recent revamp of his show in the before times). Colbert behind the desk always seems a little matter of fact and workman like. He gets the job done, but the desk often seems like a barrier between him and the guest. I would love to see something more freewheeling become the norm on that show. He is quick witted and charming, but that didn’t always come through in the traditional format.
I don’t know. Seth Meyers took the “we’re all going a little nuts in quarantine, and that’s okay” and fucking RAN with it.
I don’t watch a lot of Seth Meyers, so I’ll take your word for it.
When Letterman moved to CBS, into that cavernous Ed Sullivan Theater, it ruined his vibe. It was made clear to me that Letterman, Conan, and Colbert worked much much better with a small audience, a more manageable group for joke reaction and improvisation. Letterman’s and Conan’s NBC shows felt intimate, like they were being staged in my living room. Those shows made you feel like you were with friends, sharing an inside joke. Once you get to the big-ass theaters, though, all that goes away. In this CBS format, Letterman and Colbert now tell a joke, wait for the 30 to 45 seconds of mandated applause, then move on to the next joke. Letterman in particular looked miserable on stage. He would just blow through jokes. Gone was the playfulness of his NBC show, the weird interactions between him and Paul Shafer. There’s no freewheeling chaos when the audience is too big. This past week’s Colbert show with John Krasinski was a prime example of how Colbert works best: he laughed at his goofs, he went off on segues, and he had some fun banter (and some booze) with Krasinski. I wish he wouldn’t have a live audience again. Or at least they’d limit it to 300 to 400 people.
When Letterman filmed there, the audience capacity was 461, and when Colbert took over it was reduced to 370, so this seems extremely overblown.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/arts/television/stephen-colberts-shiny-new-home-on-broadway-reflects-its-past.html
True, but it is a big theater. Even if the audience itself isn’t very large, a space that big makes performer-audience intimacy really hard.
Letterman’s show was three times as good at NBC. It was really unfortunate when he went to CBS. It’s like he decided to grow up, and that was definitely not a good idea. And you’re right- after the first couple of years, he seemed downright miserable.
I wonder if he would’ve had the same enthusiasm drop hosting The Tonight Show.
I’m betting he would have. I think the responsibility of the huge money made him tone it down. It would have been the same thing at The Tonight Show.
Another that’s surprised me is Corden, who I found unbearable pre-pandemic. He developed some empathetic qualities doing the show from his garage, and watching him riff and exchange insults with his staff every single night (and either fly through or dismiss his pre-written monologues for being awful) since his return to the studio has been delightful. It’ll be a huge loss if he just snaps back into the ultra-rigid high ‘entertainment’ format he was doing before.
I think John Oliver’s show works much better without the audience. When there’s an audience responding, he has a tendency to smirk and giggle at his own jokes. It kind of makes me nuts while I watch him. I’ve forgotten all about it while he’s the show solo.
It will be great to have “THE” Late Show back, along with “Meanwhile.” But semantics aside, I would like to see him interacting with people in person again. It was awkwardly set up but great to see Krasinski with him last week in the little office they use. One thing that definitely won’t return is his running front row of high-fives. That will definitely be a casualty of the pandemic I’m sure.
I hope he’ll still be drunk most of the time. And we better still get to see Evie.