Going back in time: Jake Yapp and the lovely Julie promise a ‘highly interactive’ visit to 1976
For one generation, shows like The Generation Game, 3-2-1 and The Price Is Right are synonymous with great entertainment. For another, they’re a somewhat baffling glimpse into another era.
Jake Yapp has taken his love of 1970s gameshows and used it to create Cornershop Showdown – a new, live and “highly interactive” gameshow where members of the audience compete for appalling prizes.
Yapp’s bringing his latest show (suitable for 16+) to Croydon for the Croydonites Fringe Festival, where he will be performing Cornershop Showdown at Studio 55 (in Centrale) on Saturday, July 4.
Yapp has taken the lampooning skills he honed making Radio 4 in Four Minutes and his takedowns of Sunday Brunch and This Morning for Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe and applied them to game shows “in an unflinching but affectionate send-up”.
“If people are not particularly enjoying being in 2026 right now, this show gives them an hour off, letting them travel back in time to 1976, where we can all enjoy the simple, uncomplicated and innocent fun of entertainment like The Black and White Minstrel Show, or referring to women as “dolly birds”… before realising quite quickly we’d quite like to get back to 2026 as fast as humanly possible please,” Yapp says.
It’s 10 years since Yapp last did a full-length live show:
“I wouldn’t have returned to live performing if I hadn’t created this show. I have always struggled with the one-sidedness of stand-up – I’ve never been comfortable with monologuing to an audience in a somewhat dictatorial way.
“But this show is all about play – it’s a game that everybody gets to play together.”
You can follow Jake Yapp and “the lovely Julie” on their Insta: @cornershop_showdown
- Tickets for all shows at the 2026 Croydonites Festival are on sale now – just click here
- Or click here if you’re a paying subscriber to Inside Croydon for a chance to win two tickets for the show with our great fun 1970s quiz competition
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2026, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for an EIGHTH time in nine years, in Private Eye magazine’s annual round-up of civic cock-ups
- Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
