Deal Or No Deal On Tour

By | December 11, 2016

Weekdays, 4pm,
Channel 4

We are totally stoked for this, something I reckon they should have done *years* ago, for the next two weeks to bring eleven years of Deal or No Deal to a close the Banker is taking his boxes on tour. But not just to places like, I don’t know, Acton or Weston-Super-Mare, that would not be very Noel Edmonds. Instead we’re getting TV’s most innovative man Noel Edmonds in excelsis – they’re doing it on The Flying Scotsman! They’re doing it hundreds of feet underground in Wookey Hole! And they’ll be playing Deal or No Deal on an actual in-flight aeroplane!

The game is the same, the classic original 22 box formula without modern day fripperies like the Offer Button and the rubbish Box 23. The board is hysterically lo-tech. The point is you can play the game literally anywhere, and so we’re really interested to see how it’s staged in each location. Although actually we know how they staged it at Alexandra Palace because I was there.

Tour schedule:

  • Monday 12th: The Flying Scotsman
  • Tuesday 13th: The Eden Project
  • Wednesday 14th: Warwick Castle
  • Thursday 15th: Alexandra Palace
  • Friday 16th: Trafford Centre, Manchester
  • Monday 19th: Blackpool Tower
  • Tuesday 20th: Wookey Hole, Somerset
  • Wednesday 21st: On a Boeing 747
  • Thursday and Friday – don’t know at time of writing, but they filmed one in the Lion’s enclosure at Longleat, Wiltshire and at the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow.

33 thoughts on “Deal Or No Deal On Tour

  1. David Howell

    Slightly surprised they didn’t do one in South Wales (Cardiff Castle?) for one last reference to “the Banker hates the Welsh” that would’ve been very in keeping with the show’s penchant for references to its past.

    Reply
  2. Danny Kerner

    These setups have the potential to be future specials if Endemol & channel 4 allow it. Esepecially around themes of the year. Easter in a church Christmas on a snowy mountain or snowy location. These can work, if they keep it fresh.

    Reply
  3. Brekkie

    This will be turning up in a Channel 5 bad TV clip show at some point in the future.

    Reply
  4. Brig Bother Post author

    DOND On A Train hysterically awkward and looked like a health and safety nightmare with all the wires everywhere. Those cameras bounced about a lot. Amused by Pete Waterman making a cameo. The mini-board made me laugh.

    It suffered a bit that many shows do when they film outside, it feels a bit cheaper and more difficult to take seriously (even if in reality that must have taken ages to set up). However it’s credit to the brilliance of the show that half an hour in I was getting into it just as much as I would have done otherwise.

    Like I say, really interested to see how they’ve set up the other episodes. The ones in bigger settings ought to look like a more traditional show.

    Reply
  5. peter

    As you know I am a huge fan of Deal & hace watched the show from day1. The tour show is still Tv gold. Would Like to know what the insurance was for the train to film on. Having many people standing with camera’s.
    The show was brilliant, great shots & angles. 100%

    Reply
  6. John R

    Wait until you see Blackpool, that was rather tight too! They had to keep stopping and starting and doing the shots again because they had to get Noel and the contestant in the right ‘spot’ for the box openings, the trouble is there not being many ‘spots’ in the first place!

    Presumably the constant exterior shots of the train were to cover up some dodgy filming too!

    Reply
  7. peter

    DOND Eden project was alright. Noel & the map. Great filming, as some may know (SPOILER) (9th £250K will be crowned over the tour weeks) wonder if they have got special confetti or a special way to celebrate. I think (maybe wrong) the JP winner was filmed at Glasgow. Glasgow filming had bagpipes, brass band. Great way to end next Friday.
    Maybe if Channel 4 thinks the tour format has life in it they may do more. What other places will they film.
    They could try one of queens residents (Hollyrood, Edinbrugh) Or maybe film it up the river thames.

    With the plane tour show did Endemol has a certin amount of time to film on the plane?

    Reply
  8. John R

    I was going to guess that the Tour locations were loosely based on the contestant locations but it appears the contestant for Warwick Castle today lives in Port Talbot so there you go!

    Any ratings information yet?

    Reply
  9. peter

    Hi John
    I have tried to look for the ratings but at the moment no luck. I will keep on trying.
    I wonder if the tour does get the ratings Ch4 are happy with wonder if they would film 12 tour shows so all of the 22 players finally played.
    Warwick castle (today’s show) was the last to be filmed and he won 1p it’s a sign. 🙂
    If the show does come back very unlikely maybe endemol could do some big LIVE shows out & about that should make great Tv.

    Reply
  10. Thomas Sales

    Well, it’s not quite the classic formula, the show used to be 45 minutes long and I stopped watching it when it went to 60. However, the more I watch these, the more I think that, once the show’s had a good rest, and been trimmed down a bit, these might work as a weekly show on location à la Just a Minute or Songs of Praise.

    Reply
  11. Brig Bother Post author

    Fantastic venue in Warwick Castle’s Great Hall, just like the good old days of Noel’s house at Crinkly Bottom. Entertaining as well, if for the wrong reasons.

    I suspect most of them are fairly traditionally filmed, the one at Alexandra Palace certainly is, albeit with a much larger audience completely in the round.

    Reply
  12. Mart With A Y Not An I

    Yes, at home today, and for the first time in years, actually made a point of being in front of Channel 4HD at 4 to watch Deal Or No Deal in it’s death rattle.

    Despite it lapsing back into ‘possitivity’ and ‘the quarter of a million IS in my box’ eye-rolling-just-get-on-with-it bobbins littered throughout, I actually enjoyed it.

    It mostly zipped along at a fair old pace apart from two monsterous pieces of padding – the knight sword fight, and the fantasically pointless conceat to get the Banker to have a look at the contestants box – with the filler ‘Good Knight, Bad Knight’ sub-game.

    Would I watch the rest on 4OD? Probably only locations that I’d be interested in. Like the 747 show – if only to see if they also have a tracking camera plane following it.

    Do I think, this is one last throw of the dice to keep the show on the air with a bunch of ‘on location fortnights’ three or four times per year?

    Yes. And keep getting good locations to film the show on, and the occasional random one to give the location manager nightmares for weeks – and they will have pulled it off.

    Reply
  13. Danny Kerner

    Todays manchester location has a feel of US setup in terms of how it is setup.

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      The stagings are the interest to me, I think, I’m enjoying this run a great deal even if the more traditionally arranged ones work better. I’m not sure having people at different heights put used boxes in perspex podiums was greatly easy to follow, but there we are.

      I’d be well up for more episodes.

      Reply
  14. Brig Bother Post author

    This has been barely doing 200k against Tipping Point I read, such a shame, an ignominious end to a great show. I’m really enjoying the tour aspect as well.

    Reply
    1. Simon

      I made the journey across the Pennines to the Blackpool filming. Not sure they may have got a few hundred people there if the ticketing info had mentioned we would be watching the show on a screen, although I can totally get the staging.

      It was a long filming though (at least 4.5 hrs from being let into the ballroom until the end) but given the unusual set up and the fact that the filming at the top of the tower was very stop-start due to the fact that they kept having to set up the angles of the shots of Noel and the player before box opening because of the tight space they were filming in) but I guess they wanted to do it after dark so they could get the shots of the Tower being lit up blue and red.

      There can’t be many instances where the audience were drinking beer whilst on camera (they were giving the audience free hot drinks but had to pay for alcohol).

      Was glad I went though (although for the 2nd time it did mean an impromptu overnight stay due to a filming overrunning past my last train – although I know that’s a hazard when you don’t drive)

      Reply
    2. John R

      I can’t see Channel 4 justifying sending Edmonds and the crew round the country based on those ratings in the future sadly 🙁

      Odd seeing a show you know took hours and hours to record edited down to 45 minutes or so, it would probably have helped if Gordon had understood the game slightly better of course 😉 (They totally edited out the 10 minutes or so where he was trying to get round the concept that after dealing he should be picking the boxes he would have chosen in LIVE play rather than the other way round for example)

      Anyway, some information on Sell or Swap LIVE

      http://www.radiotimes.com/tv-programme/e/fhhj8r/noels-sell-or-swap-live

      I know I read somewhere it was being done in the Bottle Yard Studios, exec producer is http://www.crookproductions.com/ who interestingly was also involved in the making of 19 Keys 😉

      Reply
      1. Thomas Sales

        The problem is the scheduling; it’s against Tipping Point and detached from Countdown. I do genuinely think that this sort of thing once a week on a Saturday afternoon, possibly around 5-ish and cut down to 45 minutes, might survive. I really do.

        Reply
  15. Danny Kerner

    As we know Friday 23rd Dec game is going to be one to tune in for as we know its the end of the line for deal at this moment in time.

    Reply
  16. David

    Again, we don’t know if this was actually the last ep filmed, so they could have mucked with the order they were shown, but still, a hell of a way to go out.

    Reply
    1. Simon

      Noel’s ending speech wishing us all a Merry Christmas either meant:

      a) They intended this to be the last show to be transmitted anyway (due to the grand setting) and it was a happy coincidence that it happened to have the QM win.

      b) There was a quick production decision towards the end for Noel to wrap it up that way given you’d be mad as a production team not to show this game as the last one and they quickly told Noel to wrap the game up this way (and not with the “where will be next time on Tour” ending for or the other shows).

      Reply
      1. John R

        I reckon several parts were quickly redone after knowing of the jackpot win to make it feel like the ‘last’ one. The one at Longleat felt like the last one yesterday with everyone being dressed up for Christmas IMO.

        Felt weird with a)Noel buggering the box opening up and then b)No confetti, no party poppers, no nothing really! Not even the different music they tend to use at the end of £250k winner shows either!

        Reply
        1. Simon

          It’s still possible that the first phonecall where Noel mentioned “planes, trains, caves and castles” could have been so because they planned this to be the last transmitted show (although the option c) I was going to post – that they refilmed bits after the game had finished does feel more likely).

          Reply
          1. Brig Bother Post author

            I think Warwick was the last one filmed although I might be wrong, it’s very possible they decided to refilm a few bits to retcon it. Occasionally you’ll go to a recording and someone will suggest that because it’s so good they’re going to make it the first episode.

            Still, fantastic episode to end on.

          2. Simon

            Yes Warwick was the last one filmed but if (and it’s a big if) they’d planned in advance that this one was going to be the last one, they could have pretended it had been filmed already.

            I’m suspecting more now that there were some reshoots after the show finished.

          3. Mart with a 'Y' not an 'I'

            The Warwick Castle game was a very low win amount – so not the best way to bow out with a crash and burn game.

    1. Chris M. Dickson

      This is brilliant. Congratulations and thank you for compiling it.

      I still have no time for the show, but I love a good spreadsheet, and that’s an absolute beauty.

      Reply

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