TV & Radio

Comedy Central's FriendsFest gears up for business

As re-runs of the 1990s sitcom continue to suck in viewers, it seems we just can't leave Friends behind

Katy Harrington
Thu Aug 20 2015 - 13:00

You know that feeling when you are snobbishly surveying a friend’s bookshelf and your eye lands on an unusually thick black volume? You presume it’s a tome documenting the life of Pitt the Younger, of course, but on closer inspection discover it’s a box set of the entire 10 seasons of Friends.

Two decades after the hugely popular US sitcom first aired in 1994, people can’t get enough of Monica (anally retentive chef), Rachel (flighty waitress), Phoebe (loveable surrogate spacer), Ross (gel-head dinosaur professor), Joey (sex-pest himbo) and Chandler (loveable cardigan wearer with intonation problems).

Comedy Central, the Viacom- owned channel that broadcasts endless reruns of US imports such as Two And A Half Men, South Park and Mike & Molly, has grown by 82 per cent since launching in 2009. So crucial has Friends been to this success (32.1 million people have watched the show since it premiered on the channel) that Comedy Central recently announced it would stage FriendsFest in London’s trendy Brick Lane this September.

Before you book your plane ticket and start practising your rendition of Smelly Cat you should know that tickets for the week-long festival sold out within five minutes of going on sale, with the frustrating online checkout system prompting a lot of fans to vent their irritation on social media (“Could you beeee any more annoying?”).

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At the same time Comedy Central shared the “exciting news” that the channel will remain the exclusive TV home of Friends in the UK and Ireland for a further four years (stamping out rumours that ITV or Netflix were next in line to acquire the show).

FriendsFest will feature a full-scale set of Monica’s apartment, plus lots of “original props and memorabilia”. Nostalgic fans can drink coffee out of giant soup-bowl sized mugs at a Central Perk café, sit on the famous fountain-side sofa, play foosball or just relax in a Lazy Boy recliner and watch more reruns.

Tune in next week for more noughties/nineties revivals news as All Saints reform, Dido releases a new album and you get another infected belly button piercing.