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Stratford-upon-Avon (part three: the show)

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Dean BedfordSep 21, 2007
 

 
They recorded two shows. You'll have to forgive my inability to
attribute comments to particular shows, so some of what's here will
appear on air this week, and some in the British winter season.

Gyles won the first show, Gyles and Graham were equal winners in the
second. Gyles and Graham who were sitting together were clearly the
better players on the night, although Clement was competitive with them
in the first game, and Phill did better in the second.

As new players often do, Phill took a while to warm up. At one point in
the first game, I noticed he hadn't spoken between starting rounds. But
he got better, and was particularly good at picking up repetitions. I
think he could be a very skilful player of the game if he played it more
often as he was also pretty good at keeping going. In the second round
of the first show, Nicholas was gesturing to him to challenge which
caused an amusing moment as Phill really didn't know what he was
supposed to be challenging about.

They started rounds in this order in the first game - Graham, Gyles,
Phill, Clement. In the second game it was Clement, Gyles, Phill, Graham.

One of the things I noticed at Edinburgh that surprised me was that the
chattiest between rounds and when Nicholas was blathering on was....
Clement. He was often whispering to Paul, making witty remarks that made
Paul laugh. Paul wouldn't say anything back, he was just concentrating.
Well although Phill and Clement were not such good friends, Clement
described him as "my new friend", he did the same throughout this show,
again despite Phill not having much to say in return. In comparison,
Graham and Gyles didn't have much to say to each other.

Gyles went the full 60 on a subject, I can't remember what it was, but
he did something that true JAM fans will appreciate. To keep going he
used the old Derek Nimmo technique of going back through all the old
subjects! He related them vaguely to whatever the current subject was.
Gyles does sound and act a lot like Derek, and I couldn't help feeling
that Derek would be looking down and smiling.

Graham also nearly went almost the full 60 - he got into the 50s - on
the weird subject "an infinite number of monkeys". It was very funny
when he was finally stopped because he said "at last on this programme
I've found a subject I know something about!" I think Graham has gone
the full 60, but certainly it is rare. Nicholas then promised to find a
monkey-related subject for a future show.

There was an early subject that was something like "star quality" or
something like that. And Clement started with it "The man that most
epitomises star quality to me is Nicholas Parsons..." and then made a
sort of strangled noise as if he was choking on his words. So they all
enjoyed the thought of Clement choking on praise for Nicholas. Gyles
then took up the subject and also declared Nicholas to be a huge star,
and said he had once seen Nicholas in his underpants and how impressive
a figure he had, at which Graham pressed the buzzer with a look of
disgust and said "it's just creepy and horrible!" Nicholas gave it to
him and said the incident with Gyles had never happened. But after the
show while they were still on stage (wait for the next section), Gyles
said he was very sad as the incident had happened when they were both
trying to break the record for the longest after-dinner speech and had
changed in the same dressing room.

The subject was "A to Z" and Gyles started with the sort of gambit that
proves the panel does get to see the subjects they start with before the
show. He started to list Shakesperian characters by the alpahabet which
was quite an impressive thing to do. Clement got in and just recited the
alphabet. Then Graham got the subject and said Stratford-upn-Avon wasn't
big enough to have an A to Z - for those unaware street maps in Britain
are called "A to Z"s. Gyles buzzed in and said he had used to live there
and it did have one. He used to have a teddy bear museum there, but he
later said he had closed it but he still had property there, although
someone said to me after the show that he had actually sold the
property. Anyway Graham asked the audience whether there was an A to Z
for Stratford and the audience seemed unsure. I would say it was about
evenly divided. Nicholas said "correct challenge Gyles, one second to go
on the subject starting now" but before Gyles could start speaking,
Graham started to complain about the challenge being awarded against him
with just one second to go. In the confusion, Trudi didn't blow the
whistle, but Nicholas declared Gyles had spoken for the second and got
the extra point. Then realising that the whistle hadn't been blown,
Nicholas picked it up and blew it himself. I don't actually recall that
happening before.

I should say something about Trudi. She is the only one with a headset
on - she can hear what the producer and sound engineer are saying, the
others cannot. She seemed to really enjoy the show, she had a big grin
on her face the whole time and she was very efficient. I think she must
just keep score by putting marks beside someone's name because she was
very quick to hand the scores to Nicholas almost as soon as the whistle
was blown. I don't think she was totalling them up for him is what I
mean here. At one point she gave a poor blow and Nicholas started to
teach her about blowing whistles but she took it all very well. He
sometimes came back to the issue but she didn't seem to mind. At the end
of the show Nicholas invited her to speak to the audience and she just
grinned and shook her head.

Phill started the subject "will power" and said "how ironic it is that I
should be given the subject, the only 22 stone man on the panel who
clearly has no will power". I don't know that he was 22 stone, but he is
a big man.

I'm not so good at remembering punchlines, but what I can say is the
show was hilarious and they all had their moments. Nicholas holds the
show together magnificently, he is worth his weight in gold and he has a
good ear for when the game needs to be moved on and when the audience is
enjoying the banter. He is a champion.

At one point he said "I've just realised that this is the first time
we've had two former MPs on the show together. Clement was the MP for
the Isle of Ely, and Gyles was the MP for Chester." Clement then said
"that is total crap!" He then paused for the audience to laugh and
Nicholas looked rather perturbed. He then said "Gyles and I have
appeared on this programme together at least a dozen times". Now the
interesting thing is that up till then, Gyles and Clement had appeared
together exactly 12 times. But four of them were before Gyles was a MP,
in 1983 and 1986. Gyles nodded his head to confirm Clement's comment,
and Nicholas then said "oh well, maybe I just hadn't mentioned it
before". Nicholas did dither a little on occasions but as I say he still
keeps the programme together wonderfully well. He is beginning to look
his age too, but he still has a wonderfully young and smooth voice.

Overall I'd say Graham was the funniest. He has a good rapport with an
audience and he was very facially expressive - most of the others are
concentrating on mistakes when listening, but Graham was enjoying their
comments too. As the biggest star there, the crowd obviously enjoyed
having him there and he gives 100 percent. He had the best lines of the
night.

Phill was also very witty and fitted in wonderfully well. Of the
newcomers we've had this year, I'd say Chris Addison was the best, but
Phill was just behind him. He was certainly better than Alun Cochrane or
Dave Gorman or Jo Caulfield. As I said he was good at picking up
repetitions, although at one point he said "I have a memory that only
goes back 10 seconds .... that's probably a bit of a handicap in this
game..."

Gyles was Gyles, and you either enjoy his style or you don't. He got in
some of his favourite routines including the blind horse, and he
squabbled over points. And he was witty. He offers something different
and I reckon that sooner or later we'll be hearing him on the show as a
regular. He also takes jokes against himself very well. After the star
quality round he had a sort of running joke of praising Nicholas and
then when they had a spat over a decision, Graham turned to the
audience, shrugged his shoulders and said "they're having a domestic!"

I felt Clement wasn't at his best but he was something of an audience
favourite and his barbs were pretty good. He seemed to particularly
enjoy jokes against himself which always goes down well with the
audience. He's adorable.

There was about a minute between shows, they all just got on with it.
I'd say they recorded about 90 minutes over the two shows and there
wasn't really a crap round - maybe they'll get three shows out of it!

But it was all over too soon....

 
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