Johannesburg - It’s been little over a year since British actor, singer and comedian James Corden took over as host of America’s The Late Late Show. The talk show with a twist brings celebrities and musical guests together in a kind of late-night party, with Corden’s musical flair and off-the-cuff delivery adding a spark of authenticity.
Hitting the billion view mark on YouTube
And, in that short time, Corden has become renowned for generating the show’s hugely successful viral videos. The show’s YouTube channel recently topped over one billion views, with his top two most-watched ‘Carpool Karaoke’ clips, with Adele and Justin Bieber respectively, both having been watched almost 100 million times.
Reaching a billion views is especially impressive given the short time it took to reach the hallowed number. There are fewer than 250 YouTube channels to ever reach a billion views, according to the YouTube Trends blog. The first was Lady Gaga’s in 2010, with the Bieb’s close behind. The quickest channel to reach a billion views (Turkish music channel ‘netd müzik’) managed it in under a year, and the Late Late Show missed this record by a matter of months.
Forget Lemonade, you’ve got to see James Corden in women’s underwear
One of the channel’s most recent viral videos is Corden’s spoof of Beyoncè’s show-stopping, chart-topping hour-long ‘visual album’, Lemonade.
Lemonade was unveiled on HBO on Saturday, 23 April. Just two nights later, Corden opened The Late Late Show with Lemonjames, his detailed parody.
Corden mimics Beyoncè’s sartorial statements, including a bright yellow get-up so ridiculous that one can only pity the props/costume team that had to source it at short notice. The parody copies Lemonade’s voiceover style, surrealist visuals and the star’s excellent hairstyles, worn with swaggering irony by stubbly Corden. But Lemonjames is perfectly silly, unlike the original, in which Bey addresses ‘Women Who Are Difficult to Love’, the patriarchy, infidelity, identity, freedom and race, and which industry experts predict will reach the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart within a week of release.
Instead, Lemonjames is about Corden’s struggle to come up with original monologues for the show. He grapples with the temptation to tell yet another Trump joke. “But,” he intones, “I’ve exhausted that topic.”
And then he gives a recipe for lemonade while pouring sugar into a jar from a wooden spoon while wearing women’s underwear, an image you will never be able to un-see.
Watch it here:
You can watch Lemonade on free trial from Tidal, and, check out Monday night’s episode of The Late Late Show exclusively on Showmax and enjoy the glory that is Lemonjames.
Tune into The Late Late Show on Showmax. Each full-length episode is screened within 24 hours of the American broadcast.
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