Pointless
BBC 2
Would I Lie To You?
BBC 1
Shooting Stars
BBC 2
“Hello, I’m Alexander Armstrong and this is Pointless.” There’s irony for you, Armstrong must be thinking. Here he is on daytime television, presenting Pointless, a new daily quiz programme which anyone with a pulse and plantigrade feet could host just as effectively. It’s a bit early in the career of this popular comedian to be joining the gamey ranks of Bob Monkhouse, Bruce Forsyth and (younger but talent-free) Jimmy Carr. What can have possessed him to take the job? Was it losing the Pimms TV adverts? Is he living in a palatial stately home and struggling to keep up with the mortgage?
It’s not as if it’s one of those clever, post-modern quiz shows such as QI. Pointless is bog standard daytime telly, complete with a whooping studio audience. The format is a simple reversal of Family Fortunes, in which 100 viewers are asked to name as many James Bond films or Olympic gold medallists as they can. This time, the quiz contestants must guess which answers were the least popular. The aim is to guess the most obscure replies, thus scoring the fewest points possible. It’s not as easy as it sounds. The rollover jackpot began the opening week at a grand, rising by the end to £7,000, which Armstrong described (ironically?) as “a frightening amount of money”. Presumably his fee for this downmarket gig is quite terrifying.
It would need to be to compensate for standing at his quizmaster’s podium, day after day, asking: “And how did you two meet?” of pairs of plucky Brits who’ve stayed up all night studying Wikipedia. There’s little scope for any comical ad-libs (he’s nettled the odd punter by trying) and with each round dragging on like a war of attrition (we can’t still be on European capital cities, can we?), it’s no wonder that Armstrong is already smothering sighs of boredom. The mood of the show reminds me of crepuscular phone-ins like Quiz Call, while lacking the raw sexuality of Countdown and the intellectual rigour of Numberwang.
At least being tucked away at 4.30pm each day offers some welcome obscurity. For comedian Rob Brydon, hosting the new series of quiz show Would I Lie To You? is a more public affair. Actually, he does rather well, displaying less brittle distaste than his predecessor, Angus Deayton. It’s another nostalgic concept, of course, but one with a cosy pedigree: Call My Bluff with celebrity anecdotes replacing the dictionary definitions. Do we believe, for example, that Marcus Brigstocke once worked as a go-go dancer at the Ministry of Sound? Or that Terry Christian was mistaken for a jewel thief? You get the idea. More comedy chat show than cash register quiz, it’s the civilised format which makes it work, helping even the most grating of celebs to seem bright and amusing for half an hour.
And so to the return of Shooting Stars, the daddy of all Dadaist panel games. Comedy duo Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, whose “quiz show” has been absent from our screens for several years, have taken advantage of TV’s current comedy vacuum to slip it back into the schedules. Does it still work?
Not entirely. Vic and Bob are noticeably fatter and greyer, but that’s fine. It’s even OK that they lack the frenetic energy they used to have. But they do seem to have lost faith in their old surreal personas, slipping in and out of character and laughing at their own jokes. I suppose appearing on Who Do You Think You Are? will do that to you.
It’s more human, less bizarre, then, but still funnier than most comedy currently on the box. I hope they land the sketch show series they’re angling for. Bring back Mulligan and O’Hare, I say – the folk-singing duo with man boobs and Terry Wogan haircuts.
Helen Chappell
