Mock the Week

I was pleasantly surprised to find that "Mock the Week" was back last week. It's a show I very much enjoy.

But I have to ask: why is it that there is always exactly one woman on the panel of the show?

The thing is, I don't consider myself a warrior for social justice, and for reasons I'd rather not address right now I don't consider myself a feminist either. I don't even think it's necessarily true that the panel must include any women at all - if the occasional show went out with seven men on the show it wouldn't be a disaster.

But the flip side of that is this: if the panel were assigned by any sort of merit, or availability, or by random assignment, or anything of that sort, then by now we would have seen at least some shows where that 6-to-1 balance wasn't maintained. That it is always exactly one woman on the panel tells me that someone at the BBC has decided that that is the proper level of representation for women on that show.

Which is wrong.

So I have a simple request: I'd like to see an episode of "Mock the Week" with two women on the panel, please. (Yes, I know, I'm shockingly radical.)

And, if the powers-that-be are stuck, I'll suggest who they might be: Katherine Ryan and Sara Pascoe have both been on the show many times, they're both funny, and they've worked together well before (on Frankie Boyle's referendum/General Election shows in iPlayer if nowhere else). So they would seem to be ideal candidates - though other options exist, of course.