Monday to Friday, James Corden entertains America on The Late Late Show. But along with the comedy talent, it also takes discipline, hard work and a strict timetable to turn out five shows a week.

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Here's how it's done, minute to minute, as revealed by Corden's friend and exec producer Ben Winston...

7:30am

“Get in the car, call my mother, because she’s very upset about my move to Los Angeles.”


7:45

“Call Sheila Rogers, one of our bookers who we managed to poach from Letterman. Chat with her, find out how we’re doing with bookings for the week.”

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8:00

“Get into the office, sit with Rob [Crabbe] and go through what the monologue’s going to be, what’s in the news that day.”


9:00

“James comes in and sits with the writers, talks about some ideas. We’re not like Jon Oliver or Colbert, so instead we try to do something a bit silly with it. So if Hilary’s done an interview last night, we might replace the presenter with James and try to make a sketch out of it.”


9:30

“Rob, James and I will meet and we’ll go through what’s in the show tonight, check he’s happy, which usually he is.”


10:00

“Go to the Edit, check how our VTs are looking for that night.”


10:30

“Gather the group for a production meeting, go through each part bit by bit, making sure everybody’s happy.”


11:00

“We go through part two on the scripts, make changes for our big comedy swing, whatever game or sketch we’re doing live in the studio.”


12:00

“Writers will come in, we’ll tick the ones we think are funny.”


12:30

“Sit with segment producers. We have three guests but they all come out at the same time. We like it, it’s inclusive, it’s different from other shows, it reflects James’s personality. We’ll allocate a guest producer to each one of those. We’ll sit together, they’ll give what their questions are. We’ll make changes on that and work on how we can link Kobe Bryant and Betty White, what can we do with them that makes it more fun?”


13:00

“Planning meeting for the day ahead.”


14:00

“We go to the floor for a rehearsal. An audience sits in. If they laugh at a joke, it stays, if they don’t it doesn’t.”


15:00

“We run through the guest sketches. Then we get on with all the other stuff that comes with running a show: the commercial partnerships, the sponsorship, the issues that you’ve got.”


16:30

“Go and say hello to all the guests.”


17:00

“We tape.”


18:15

“We finish taping, we’re quite strict about that. We’re usually about four minutes heavy. Go to the edit, nip stuff out, give notes, plan tomorrow.”


20:00

“Go the edit, make sure the show’s ready.”


21:30

“We air in 155 different countries, so it’s got to be delivered by now.”


21:45

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“I go home.”

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