The first episode of Lily Allen And Friends aired last night, and for those of you who watched it, I'm sure you were as pleasantly surprised as I was. While the Mail on Sunday and plenty of other blogs such as Perez Hilton reported that Lily's "friends" left the taping of the show early, calling it "limp" and "lame", after actually watching the show, I'm more than positive those claims are false. In response to the bad "reviews", Lily defended her show in a recent Myspace blog post, saying that the members of the audience who did leave early left because "we ran over a little and naturally a small number of the audience had to catch the last trains back to wherever they came from". Even despite this first episode's rawness, it's clear that this show isn't nearly as "lame" as everyone would like you to believe.

This chat show has a ton of potential, and once they smooth out the kinks, I have a feeling it's going to be incredibly successful. A bit of the transitions were rough, Lily seemed a bit nervous towards the beginning of the show, but despite that, even the rawest parts of the show were entertaining. The guests of the night were Cuba Gooding Jr and David Mitchell, Youtube "Chocolate Rain" sensation Zay Tonday and musical guest Reverend and the Makers. However, the most exciting part of the show would be when Cuba Gooding Jr ripped off his shirt...

Okay maybe it wasn't the most exciting point of the show, but it was certainly the turning point. After having to endure stuff I'm sure the producers thought would be wildly hilarious and hip (watching videos of animals "making love" with no one but Lily laughing for the most part), having Cuba run up on stage, give Lily a bouquet of roses, rip of his shirt and throw gummy bears into the office seemed to put Lily right at ease. From that moment on, I genuinely enjoyed the show, and could stop clenching and worrying about how awkward everything felt.

What makes this show different than say, The Charlotte Church Show, is that the audience is a large part of the show (hence the whole "And Friends" bit of the title) and that it doesn't feel like a typical, uptight chat show. There's a bar on set, David Mitchell sipped white wine throughout most of the show, and the general atmosphere and theme of the show's first episode seemed to be, "Yeah, we know this is a bit sh*t and rough at the moment, but we know it'll get better, and we all heart Lily".

I highly recommend that you take the time out of your busy Tuesday nights and watch this show. Lily is no Graham Norton or Jonathan Ross, but that's perfectly fine because she doesn't try to be, and knows what people want from her: cheeky humour and good music.

Cate Sevilla is the Deputy Editor of TV Scoop.