sheepshearer No matter if it's real or not, no one wants to hear canned laughter. It's not 1980.

postmaster-195 Just not funny. How anyone here can give this high scores is beyond me, unless they are associated with the show. And the canned laughter is an insult to my sense of humour. Shame. The idea is good, the acting is good, but the scripts weak as water. Whatever happened to the BBC's ability to show great comedies like they did in the past.

dt-81 I find rather hard to believe that folk believe that there is canned laughter in this show. I also find it had to believe that someone who claims to have watched only 30 seconds of it can actually judge. I have attended 2 recordings of this rather clever show and can categorically state that the laughter is real laughter from real people sitting in their bums watching the actors sweating. Ben Elton is there throughout, pointing clues between takes for those not fully versed in Shakespeares. In fact in some of the breaks where characters have to make lengthy costume change he goes into long spiels about have British sit-coms are made and that laughter tracks are never used at the BBC.Second series in now in the can - hopefully there will be a third.

theminsh You have to be educated enough to understand Shakespeare to get a lot of the jokes. If you are not I understand why you would turn it off in thirty seconds. But this does not make it less worthy as there are plenty of people smart enough to get the bard and do, and love it. This is not a programme who people who watch BGT would enjoy, it presumes you are clever which we need more of. The mass stupefaction to appeal to the masses is a race to the bottom. Brilliant we need more of this. BBC be brave. You have to be educated enough to understand Shakespeare to get a lot of the jokes. If you are not I understand why you would turn it off in thirty seconds. But this does not make it less worthy as there are plenty of people smart enough to get the bard and do, and love it. This is not a programme who people who watch BGT would enjoy, it presumes you are clever which we need more of. The mass stupefaction to appeal to the masses is a race to the bottom. Brilliant we need more of this. BBC be brave.