So Is Jack The New Host? I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

Happy New Year everyone. Here is my recap of episode four, broadcast December 7, 2009:

Opening: “We present I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, the antidote to panel games. At the piano is Colin Sell, and your chairman is Jack Dee.”Recorded At: Festival Theater, Chichester

Panelists: On Jack’s left, Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden. On Jack’s right, Tim Brooke-Taylor and David Mitchell.

Scorer: “And please welcome the lady whose entry is always warmly welcomed, our regular scorer, the delightful Samantha.”

Game One: Uxbridge English Dictionary
Surprisingly, Jack doesn’t give a lengthy explanation.

Game Two: Sound Charades
Lionel Blair, laser display board, but alas, no Hamish and Dougal.

Game Three: Incomplete Verses From Playground Rhymes

Game Four: Mornington Crescent
They don’t just play Mornington Crescent, mind you, but Trivia Mornington Crescent – in other words, lots of strange “facts” about each subway stop. Mrs. Trellis thinks she’s writing to The News Quiz, and has missed the point of that show as well.

Game Five: Just A Minim
On Just A Minute, panelists are asked to speak on a given topic for sixty seconds without “hesitation, repetition or deviation.” In Just A Minim, panelists must actually sing a song while sticking to the same rules, and can be challenged for breaking them in the same way. The round ends with a gong rather than Just A Minute’s whistle, and surprisingly, there isn’t a single joke at Colin’s expense.

Game Six: Adapt Proverbs To Fit Foreign Countries

Closing: “Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and David Mitchell were being given silly things to do by Jack Dee with Colin Sell setting some of them to music. The program consultant was Iain Pattinson, and the producer was Jon Naismith.”


By this point you're probably wondering if I'm going to keep recapping ISIHAC every time a new season airs. The answer is no. What I'm trying to do here is cover the ISIHAC host search, so I'll stop recapping the show as soon as we know who the new permanent host is.

Despite the best efforts of the BBC, I think it's pretty clear that Jack is the new host. He got close to unanimous praise as a guest host in Series 51, hosted the 2009 ISIHAC touring stage show, and is now hosting Series 52. He's probably the new host...but is that really a good thing?

I'm not trying to say that Jack's doing a bad job. He's doing a very good job - certainly better than Stephen Fry or Rob Brydon. It's just that when Humphrey Lyttelton died, the people associated with the show said that they weren't sure the show should continue at all, and that if it were to continue, the new host would have to be "someone of stature." If that's the case, why did they go with three frequent panelists as guest hosts for Series 51? Quite frankly, I found Series 51 a little disappointing. Yes, Stephen and Rob weren't spectacular - but more importantly, not even Jack was allowed to say anything Humphrey wouldn't have said. A new host should mean new blood.

Unlike some people, I'm not saying I want the show to change too dramatically. I don't think Barry, Graeme and Tim should reduce their appearances, and I don't want to lose all the catchphrases and running jokes. Yet after Series 51 ended, Jon Naismith said at one point that he was going to use Series 52 as a chance to try out some more unusual ideas for hosts. Why didn't he do that, and more importantly, if he had, would it have meant anything?


I don't think we're ever going to know.

More ISIHAC next week,

Aaron

Could America Get A Clue?

Here is my recap of episode three, broadcast November 30, 2009:

Opening: “We present I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, the antidote to panel games. At the piano is Colin Sell, and your chairman is Jack Dee.”

Recorded At: Festival Theater, Chichester

Panelists: On Jack’s left, Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden. On Jack’s right, Tim Brooke-Taylor and David Mitchell.

Scorer: “And settling down on my left hand, please welcome our delightful scorer, the ever-lovely Samantha.”

Game One: Undelivered Letters That, If They Had Been Delivered, May Have Changed The Course Of History
“Dear Moses, I’m writing to seek compensation for the damage done by your unruly children of Israel. Last Saturday night they caused a great nuisance marching around the town about seven times playing trumpets and I don’t know what. To cap it all, they did severe damage to our ice cream parlor. Yours truly, Walls of Jericho.”

Game Two: One Song To The Tune Of Another
Jack: “We have to apologize to anyone who thought they’d got tickets to Colin’s last concert – turns out it wasn’t.” No convoluted explanation, though.

Game Three: Who Am I?
You know that game where they tape a card to your back with the name of a famous person, and you have to ask yes\no questions to figure out who it is? Well...I won’t spoil the punch line here.

Game Four: One pair of panelists must outline their unusual medical condition (displayed to the audience via the laser display screen) to the other two, who have to figure out what it is.

Game Five: The panelists must play announcers introducing TV and radio shows chosen purely on the basis of a catchy title.
“And later on Radio 4 today, Dale Winton goes to visit the Yorkshire Dales…or does he? Dale Or No Dale.”

Game Six: One pair of panelists is calling a help line to get their money back; the other two are the operators.

Game Seven: Gardener’s Film Club (including Bring Me The Hedge Of Alfredo Garcia…and way, way too many lawn mower jokes.)

Closing: “Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and David Mitchell were being given silly things to do by Jack Dee, with Colin Sell setting some of them to music. The program consultant was Iain Pattinson, and the producer was Jon Naismith.”

That's episode three! Now, I once sent an email to ISIHAC's official email address asking if they would consider doing some tapings in America. Jon Naismith sent me an very kind reply, but one that essentially summed up what I already knew - that (A) nobody in America knows what ISIHAC is, and (B) even if he wanted to tape in America, it's ultimately not his decision - the BBC has a separate department for selling shows to other countries. In retrospect, of course, I had taken the wrong angle. The British version of ISIHAC is never going to do a taping in America - but could there be an American version? Could radio game shows be exported the way television game shows are?

I like to think some could - for example, Just A Minute and The News Quiz seem to me to be such straightforward concepts that they'd work in any country if you found the right host and panelists. ISIHAC is a different story. Quite frankly, I wonder how it was even launched in Britain, as the show on now seems to me to be very reliant on being an institution, and on running jokes that have been in place for decades.

An American version, obviously, would have to be a very different show. As much as it pains me to say this, you can't import the running jokes - can you imagine Hamish and Dougal becoming rednecks, or Mornington Crescent being played using New York subway stops instead of London? In short, and even though I must have done it somehow, I have no idea how a new listener is supposed to get into ISIHAC, and that means it wouldn't work in another country. I have this horrible vision of an American ISIHAC taping where the audience is given preprinted sheets telling them when to laugh.

See you next week,

Aaron

Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me...I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue

Here is my recap of episode two, broadcast November 23, 2009:

Opening: “We present I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, the antidote to panel games. At the piano is Colin Sell, and your chairman is Jack Dee.”

Recorded at: Old Vic Theater, London

Panelists: On Jack’s left, Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden. On Jack’s right, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Rob Brydon.

Scorer: “And here to ensure that each of our panel will hold their own, please welcome our talented scorer, the delightful Samantha.”

Game One: Uxbridge English Dictionary – which, for those who don’t know, consists of the panelists coming up with punning new definitions for words. An example from this show: “Parental. You never actually own the fruit.”

Game Two: Pick Up Song
Jack explained this better than I ever will: “You should each sing along with your record teams, until Samantha turns the volume down. If, when the music returns, you’re within a cheesy quaver of the disc I’ll be awarding points, and points mean the directions on a magnetic compass. What do points mean?” Audience: “PRIZES!”
There you go! The audience also participates (for want of a better word) in Rob’s rendition of Don’t Stop Me Now.

Game Three: Sound Charades – complete with Lionel Blair reference, laser display board, and Hamish and Dougal describing Never Mind The Buzzcocks

Game Four: Mornington Crescent
The show’s signature game, complete with Jack looking up the rules in the original Mornington Crescent rule book, which he has to walk off stage to find. Mrs. Trellis seems to think she’s writing to the President Of The United States.

Game Five: Swanee Kazoo
Colin, according to Jack, is worshipped at the piano – every time he comes on stage people say “Oh God, Colin Sell.”

Game Six: Parliamentary Songbook

Closing: “Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Rob Brydon were being given silly things to do by Jack Dee, with Colin Sell setting some of them to music. The program consultant was Iain Pattinson, and the producer was Jon Naismith.”


That's episode two! Now, I got a comment on last week's post that began "ISIHAC sounds a bit like WWDTM" - referring, for those who aren't up on radio panel games, to NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. I adore both shows, but never would have thought of them as being comparable to each other. Wouldn't The News Quiz be a better pick for the British equivalent of WWDTM?

Then I thought about it. Certainly, you'd never hear Jack Dee (or whoever the permanent host ends up being) ask Barry Cryer to identify a quote from that week's news - that's The News Quiz's territory. At the same time, however, you wouldn't hear Sandi Toksvig (the host of The News Quiz since 2006) read an incomplete silly poem - even a topical one - as that would be too ISIHAC. WWDTM, naturally, does both those things, and also has the phone-in element (which neither British show possesses.) If we look at the other recurring segments of WWDTM and try to match them up with British radio, Not My Job makes me think of The Museum Of Curiosity, while I suppose Bluff The Listener comes closest to The Unbelievable Truth!


So which one is it? Well, let me make one more important point - none of the four British shows mentioned above (ISIHAC, The News Quiz, The Museum Of Curiosity, and The Unbelievable Truth) are on every week for the whole year. The way BBC Radio 4 works, a show is in rotation with two or three others in its time slot, with each show running for a couple weeks before another one comes on to take its place. WWDTM, on the other hand, is on every week for the whole year, so perhaps it is necessary to take a little of each of these shows? BBC Radio 4 currently has three game show slots...which is about the number of game shows that are on public radio in America...so maybe we all win in the end?

I'll discuss another angle of this issue - whether ISIHAC, WWDTM, or any of these other shows would work as an exported format - next week.

See you then,

Aaron

From Now Until January 14, 2010...

Welcome to my attempt at a weekly game show blog. I'm going to start with something of a special event - week by week coverage of Series 52 of BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (which started in November, but I've tracked down the episodes.)

I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (ISIHAC) is a show that nobody in America has heard of. This is a bad thing, not only because ISIHAC is a great show, but because ISIHAC is close to impossible to describe. The closest show Americans would know might be Whose Line Is It Anyway? - and beyond the very basic idea of improvisational comedy game show, they have nothing in common. I can't explore ISIHAC in detail in one blog post, but suffice to say it features such games as One Song To The Tune Of Another and Sound Charades, and that the host's introduction to these games is as funny as the game itself.

From the first episode in 1972, the show was hosted by jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton, who may have been an unlikely choice but who turned out to be fantastic in the role. Humphrey died on April 25, 2008 at age 86; after the inevitable year of consideration, it was announced that the show would continue. In June and July 2009, ISIHAC Series 51 featured guest hosts Stephen Fry, Jack Dee and Rob Brydon. Out of those three, I thought Jack did the best, and I apparently wasn't the only one: it was eventually announced that Jack would be hosting Series 52 alone. So here, without further ado, is a recap of the first episode of that series, broadcast on November 16, 2009.

Opening: “We present I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, the antidote to panel games. At the piano is Colin Sell and your chairman is Jack Dee.”

Recorded at: Old Vic Theater, London

Panelists: On Jack’s left, Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden. On Jack’s right, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Rob Brydon.

Scorer: “And keen to keep an eye on the scores and eager to get them down for the teams, please welcome our lovely scorer, the ever-delightful Samantha.”

Game One: Questions That Have Never Been Asked (Jack: “‘Am I looking forward to this?’ is an obvious example.”) But Possibly Should Have Been.
George H.W. Bush: “Do you think I should have a vasectomy?”
Jeremy Hardy: “Why would I want a singing lesson?”

Game Two: One Song To The Tune Of Another (without a convoluted explanation, but at least there’s a joke at Colin’s expense)
Tim sings the words of I Kissed A Girl to the tune of Land Of Hope And Glory…and those are pretty much the only ones I’ve heard of.

Game Three: Historical Voicemail (King Arthur, Napoleon Bonaparte, Sir Walter Raleigh, Charles Darwin)Jack attempts to do Napoleon’s outgoing message in French…it works about as well as you’d expect.

Game Four: Incomplete Verses From Greeting Cards

Game Five: Barry and Graeme alternate words of a letter from Pope Benedict XVI to Silvio Burlesconi; Tim and Rob must alternate words of the reply.

Game Six: Pensioner’s Film Club (including, of course, Bring Me That Water Bottle Of Alfredo Garcia)

Closing: “Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Rob Brydon were being given silly things to do by Jack Dee, with Colin Sell setting some of them to music. The program consultant was Iain Pattinson, and the producer was Jon Naismith.”

There you go! A good enough start to a series. The BBC insists that Jack is not the new permanent host of the show, but frankly, I don't believe them. I suppose we'll just have to wait through new seasons of Just A Minute, The Unbelievable Truth, and The Museum Of Curiosity to find out for sure.

More ISIHAC next Thursday,

Aaron