Well this was certainly different. If the pilot they shot last year with Bill Bailey was quite trad ITV light entertainment, this felt quite alien and brave but in an interesting way that I’ve got no idea how an audience would respond. It was certainly one of the most entertaining recordings I’ve been to…
- It was recorded at Under the Bridge, off Chelsea football stadium, quite a small music venue. The set was a video wall at the back of the stage, band stage left, the two team podiums (which looked similar to last year’s if I recall) set apart in the middle and that’s it. The background is mainly disco-style blue dots with the name of the round and occasionally the money cast upon it.
- The audience are seated in the dancefloor area, but between bits of recordings you were able to just get up and get drinks from the bars at the back. Relaxed! There were a lot of people watching from the mezzanine a few foot behind the dancefloor on stools.
- The host is the brilliant Frank Skinner, very quick to fill with gags as you’d expect but also capable of a sharp put down where necessary. He was dressed in a suit and a bow tie and carried a stick mic (although also seemed to be miced up himself). The music was all provided by Alex Horne and the Horne Section, great choice and able to improvise quickly. Horne also did all the announcing. Fans of The Frank Skinner Show will be pleased to note that Skinner also joins in with the theme tune. I also noticed that the tunes played coming back from the breaks were TV themes with “name that tune” added to the end.
- Basically the whole thing felt rather more like something from the cabaret circuit or Fringe show rather than a primetime ITV recording. It was referred to a runthrough as well as a pilot, so I’ve no idea. I could certainly understand it more as a runthrough, but then there’d be no need for an audience. It certainly felt different. It’s rather retro in style, but not seemingly in an ironic way.
- Like last year’s pilot two teams of three play. They will play four rounds (always referred to as “games” to the point where they’d re-record if they said “round”, so maybe the intention is for a different selection to be played each week).
- Game one was Name That Tune – seven intros played up to the point the lyrics kick in, buzz in and name the tune for £50. Different to last time is that there were a lot more modern tunes in the mix (i.e. Uptown Funk). Scores displayed on the video wall after each round, but surely the contestants are standing in the way.
- Game two was Twist a Tune – the band play a medley of well known hits but all done in an unusual style – this time country and western. Teams write down the songs on boards. £100 for each song correctly identified.
- Game three was Build a Tune – The band would play a tune starting with one instrument and gradually adding instruments, buzz in when you know it. Songs started at £400 then halved in value with each extra instrument down to £50. Four songs here.
- Game four was the classic Bid a Note, best of five tunes, £2,000 for the winners – yup it’s the golden snitch. I always have a problem with bid a note in that it’s not always really that good a game, classic as it is, any time the players think they can name it in one note the clue was clearly too easy. I think the difficulty this time round was basically OK, personally I think you need to have clues that are vague enough to have a few possible responses to make the bidding element actually mean anything.
- Losers get to keep their winnings.
- The winning team went thorough to the Prize Tune which is the Golden Medley of old – one of the team must identify eight tunes in sixty seconds, you get timed out after around eight seconds. This is for a car, pictured on the screen. No extra money if they don’t make it.
- So really not sure what to make of it – a very enjoyable recording certainly but it’s going to be quite an odd final edit I think. I’d love to see it one day. There were two commercial breaks but I don’t know what to read into that.
