THE BEST
Terry Wogan, Blankety Blank, 1979-83
The impish asides, the buttery self-lampoonery, the sudden plunges from playful high register jig to conspiratorial rumble: the great broadcaster’s custodianship of the cheerily cut-price panel quiz was a masterclass in versatility, a four-seasons-in-one-suit kaleidoscope of learnedness and twinkle, all delivered in a voice like molten tweed. He was, in a very real sense, Sir Telly Wogan.
Bruce Forsyth, The Generation Game, Play Your Cards Right et al
“Good game,” he’d say, chin cocked and bow tie set to stun, “good game.” And it was; its imperishable host – the fizzing knot of pent-up pizazz known, not unreasonably, as Brucie – presiding over the genre with an air of exultant menace: the impatient ad-libs and merciless herding of contestants bringing an element of incipient aggro to the knitwear and teasmades. We’ll not see his like again.
Larry Grayson, The Generation Game, 1978-81
The sequined slippers by the hearth of teatime gameshowdom. Peering over his dinner-lady glasses in lemony disapproval at contestant and prize alike, his MO – music-hall flouncing, whimsy, wrist-flapping catchphrases (“Shut that door!”) – delivered with genuine warmth, thus reducing the Makeweight family from Penrith to helpless puddles of glee.
Les Dawson, Blankety Blank, 1984-90
Treated his stint at the helm of the quiz like a community service order, harrumphing, tutting, and wearily punctuating his contempt for the format with sudden INCREASES IN VOLUME, thus imbuing jokes about mothers-in-law with a sense of EXPLOSIVE UNEASE. The upshot? One of the finest (*gurns*) comic turns in TV history, courtesy of one of its few (*nudges bosom*) GENUINE GENIUSES.
Ant & Dec, Everything, 1999-now
Conjoined fun-hub and expansively foreheaded kitemark of primetime superiority. Age shall not weary them, nor the formats condemn. Mastery of the medium achieved via 500-tog camaraderie, immaculate comic timing and oddly comforting knowledge that should one Ant or Dec quit the other Ant or Dec would curl up wordlessly by his companion’s loafers and allow the falling leaves to cover his tiny body, like a grieving Dickensian terrier.
THE WORST
Vernon Kay, Everything else, 1999-now
Oblong-skulled presentational node, affixed reflexively to any format (All Star Family Fortunes, Boys and Girls, Celebrities Under Pressure, Million Dollar Mind Game, The Whole 19 Yards) that requires unthreateningly northern everyberk patter, senseless gurning, honking glee at own capacity for japery and sudden, anguished cries of “SURVEH SED...??” from a man who looks like teeth embedded in a cylinder of dogfood.
Robert Kilroy-Silk, Shafted, 2011
“Letssss … play! SHAFTED?” barked the former Labour MP for Ormskirk, scowling his way through this incomprehensible 2001 misfire like a small-claims magistrate both contemptuous and Fearful! Of … autocue. AND. Enunci … ation? Palpable irritation with contestants and habit of slowly bunching his fist while hissing “shhhaaaafted” was less “Light-Ent Yeoman” and more “Divorced Proctologist Arrested After Oddbins Outburst”.
Stephen Mulhern, Catchphrase, Go for It, etc
Oh look, it’s Hostbot3000, the crushingly ubiquitous everyanchor with the haunted autocue stare, built to weather a welter of no-brow formats and guaranteed not to malfunction during the 3,419th joke about Simon Cowell’s trouse…*fzzz*…*craaang*. Presumably purchased in a BOGOF deal with Ben Shephard, then forgotten at the bottom of a canvas tote until it was too late to exchange him for a pack of mince.
Jim Davidson, Big Break, The Generation Game
It was a strain of madness that was in force the day this sod was handed the keys to family gameshowdom and told to “be less soddy”. Cue a decade of ball jokes, passive-aggression and the ever-present suspicion that we were but an idle mention of the colonies away from “Nick Nick” going full blackface. Brrr.
Noel Edmonds, Deal Or No Deal, Cheap Cheap Cheap, Telly Addicts, Are You Smarter Than a 10 Year Old?
Looks like a child’s sand drawing of Aslan. Sounds like an amateur hypnotist lecturing an anxious pensioner on the dangers of rewiring a strimmer. Inarguably at ease in the genre, of course, but the hubris is Partridgean, the beard harrowing and the permanent micro-smirk unlikely to swat away the sense that one false move and he’ll … tear. Your. Soul. Apart.
