Back to the Bar

Bognor or Bust

KYTV. Kelloggs' Corn Flakes adverts. Have I Got News For You. Before They Were Famous. Have I Got News For You. The television career of Angus Deayton is a long and fairly distinguished one. Having been at the helm of the BBC's flagship television satirical news quiz Have I Got News For You for ten years, his career took a nose dive after several tabloid allegations made his position at the helm untenable. But ITV didn't care, they jumped at the chance to snap him up and the next big thing for him after the moderate success of cookery reality show Hell's Kitchen is a brand new topical comedy news quiz. Have I Got News For You Lite, if you will.

Each team consists of a member of the public who wants to win a holiday and two of four celebrities, picked school playground style in front of a makeshift prison mugshot photo wall thing (nicked from not brilliant Bob Mill's vehicle Have I Got Unusual Trivia For You - oh alright then, Not a Lot of People Know That). The celebrities range from mildly well known (Tara-Palmer Tompkinson) to comedians you've never heard of (Rob Rouse, anyone?).

The show only has two rounds. Round one is a first on the buzzer round, although it's hardly quickfire and there's plenty of space for jokes. Naturally, the best ones are delivered by Deayton himself who we think still has trhe same writers. Each question is worth one point. Deayton actually reads the points in the same way as he used to on HIGNFY, by way of a rather laboured analogy.

Instead of the caption competition, going into the break is a picture from the news with something in it removed and for a biddovfun you can try and guess what it was.

The second and final round is against the clock. There are two close up pictures from two different news stories and the MOTP from one of the teams picks one -the other one goes to the other team afterwards.. They are then asked as many questions as they can about it on the clock. However having measured them, one team from the opening episode got 47 seconds whilst the other only 37. I think it's safe to assume they get the same amount of questions though and the clock is therefore a gimmick. Each correct answer is worth two points.

At the end of that, the MOTP with the highest amount of points gets to play for a holiday. If they win they go somewhere nice (like Australia) and if they lose they go to rainy Bognor. Yes! It's another thing they've nicked, this time from the genre-defining Don't Forget Your Toothbrush. Something else they nicked is that whichever holiday the MOTP doesn't win, a random member of the audience will win. This is picked pseudorandomly (with questions being asked of the various panellists to arrive at a row and a seat number).

The big final question comes from an obscure guest local publication of the place where the MOTP wants to go (yes, another idea 'borrowed' from HIGNFY). It's a fifty fifty guess and they can even get all the celebs to help, whatever use they would be. It's not really Bognor or Bust is it? More like Nice Holiday or Bognor which doesn't scan very well but there you go. Residents of Bognor have complained, having been there I think they should be thankful for any publicity the show gives them. Actually, we think it's really strange that such a big prize is given a such a non-serious show. We'd have preferred it if winning meant a holiday to Bognor, which would be in keeping with the comedy.

Bognor or Bust should be rubbish. In fact it's merely mediocre, which is probably as good as could be hoped and would very likely be a lot less watchable if it wasn't for Deayton whose delivery is as spot on for this sort of thing as always. We can't see Merton and Hislop being too troubled by it's presence to be honest - it's very ITV.

|