‘Real Time With Bill Maher’: HBO Talk Show Brings Back Limited Audience & In-Person Roundtable Panel

Peter White
·2 min read

Bill Maher has spent much of the last few months hearing canned laughter after his opening monologue on Real Time with Bill Maher.

This week, however, the comedian will hear the reaction of a live audience after the HBO show became the first major talk show to bring back a crowd.

This week’s episode of the show, which airs Friday at 10 pm, will tape with a limited 25-person studio audience and will also feature a roundtable discussion in the studio.

The show is thought to be the first talk show to bring back audiences following the COVID-19 production shutdown. A handful of gameshows are believed to be working on bringing in limited audiences, but it’s a sign of production slowly moving back towards how it was pre-Coronavirus.

This panel will include Peter Hamby, host of Snapchat’s political show Good Luck America and contributing writer for Vanity Fair, and Jessica Yellin, former CNN Chief White House Correspondent, author of the novel Savage News and founder of #NewsNotNoise on Instagram.

Health and safety protocols and COVID-19 guidelines will be in place for both the studio audience and roundtable guests. The show is filmed at CBS Television City’s Studio 33.

Maher will still conduct virtual interviews with certain guests including with Ewan McGregor about his upcoming Apple TV+ motorcycle docu-series Long Way Up and former FBI agent and author of Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump, Peter Strzok.

Real Time with Bill Maher is exec produced by Maher, Sheila Griffiths, Marc Gurvitz, Dean Johnsen and Billy Martin, Chris Kelly is co-executive producer, Matt Wood is producer and Paul Casey is director.

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