And fans sent home from Celebrity Juice taping

Topical radio comedies The Now Show and Newsjack are to be taped without a studio audience this week.

The recordings of the Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra shows, hosted by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis, and Kiri Pritchard-McLean respectively – are still going ahead, but behind closed doors.

A statement on the BBC ticketing site said: ‘In light of current events, we have decided to cancel the audience for these recordings. We’re sorry for the short notice and for the disappointment caused by this.’

And a Radio 4 spokeswoman told Chortle: ‘ The safety and wellbeing of our staff, production teams and audiences is paramount in these unprecedented times. 

‘We have decided that Radio 4's comedy programmes that would usually record in front of an audience, such as The Now Show and 4Extra's Newsjack, will record without an audience for the foreseeable future.’

The news comes after a recording of Celebrity Juice was abruptly cancelled last night in the wake of new government advice to avoid social contact.

Host Keith Lemon – aka Leigh Francis – also revealed that he wasn’t feeling well during the taping at Elstree studios and had a doctor on standby.

Lemon and guests Paddy McGuinness, Joel Dommett and Roman Kemp made a brief appearance to apologise to the audience and send them home before recording some links for a ‘best of’ compilation show.

McGuinness wrote online: 'Well that escalated quickly. We were all set to record @celebjuiceofficial audience in and then we hear Boris Johnson's speech and that was that!’

Lemon posted that it was ‘weird without an audience’.

Dommett also cancelled his tour shows this week in the face of the latest coronavirus advice.

And in New York, production on Saturday Night Live has been put on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The long-running NBC comedy show joins the swathes of US programmes put on hold because of the escalating lockdown.

It had been on a scheduled hiatus for the past week, but plans to resume production for a new episode on  March 28 have now been shelved, and the show will remain on hiatus until the situation changes.

Published: 17 Mar 2020