We love a bit of hyperbole

By | February 8, 2021
I don’t think this will balance

An episode of Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance (I’ve realised that doing the typography gag makes it hard to search for) films remotely today, if you’re in the audience do feel free to spill the beans on whether it’s any good or not.

Of interest, the BBC is planning on semi-stripping it several nights a week at 9pm which suggests a) real confidence and/or b) a lack of dramas in the tank.

“This is going to be truly epic. It is such an intense game with so much jeopardy to win big and lose even bigger, where the difference between failure and success is always in the balance. I’m so happy to be working with the fantastic team at the BBC and cannot wait to get in the studio and start stacking those gold bars!”

Gordon Ramsey

Looking forward to seeing how they can “lose even bigger” – fail to stack your bars and lose your house.

In other news, Lingo has been recommissioned for another 60 eps. Let’s hope this time Adil tells losing contestants to “Ling-off.”

30 thoughts on “We love a bit of hyperbole

  1. CliveOfLegend

    Right, that wasn’t too bad. Screening of an episode recorded in December rather than a live recording, for what it’s worth.

    For the set, think of the Eccleston/Tennant-era TARDIS with the centre console removed. In its place, a sort-of four-armed ziggurat balancing on its center, each arm having three numbered zones. Quite nice looking, Copperplate Gothic Bold appeared to be the font-du-jour.

    The game: Two contestants play each game. To win, they have to put a stack of light-up “gold” bars on each zone of the ziggurat thing. If a single bar falls, they leave with nothing. One/two bar stacks are worth nothing, the three 3-bar stacks are worth 9k, the three 4-bar stacks worth 16k, and the one 5-bar stack are worth 25k.

    The duo draw one of the zones at random, and then choose 1 of 12 categories and which size stack they want to play with. They’re given a list question and 60 seconds to give 1 answer per bar in the stack, placing them one-by-one on the zone as they go. If they give all the answers and stack them all in time, they keep the money. Give a wrong answer or run out of time, the whole stack becomes worthless and they have to place an additional penalty block on top. Also, for every 3 stacks placed, they earn a lifeline (“credit”), which included “pick again” (draw a different zone) and “bank” (use before a question, and if they successfully stack the lot, they go home with its value guaranteed).

    Started with an irritating montage and and irritating VT to introduce the contestants so I was leaning against it from the start, but I would up coming around to it for the most part. The game itself was actually really good fun, I’d quite like to have a crack at it, money or no money, though the ziggurat thing isn’t quite as natural a character as the Wall or Tipping Point’s machine. Gordon never particularly convinced, though for anyone with a bet on he did say fuck *and* shit in one episode so well done him (amusingly bleeped in one clip in the pre-title spoiler package but not when the same moment appeared in the episode proper). Overall enjoyed it, though can’t fathom what they think they’ll gain from stripping it.

    Reply
    1. CliveOfLegend

      Actually I think I’ve probably got the number of stack available wrong, but they never gave us a great look at the boxes. I’m fairly sure there were two each of the one and two bar stacks but I can’t make the other eight work out to $100k.

      Reply
    2. Thomas Sales

      I remember The Almost Impossible Gameshow got bleeped for the first fifteen minutes due to Section 1.6 of the OFCOM broadcasting code, are they doing a similar thing here?

      Reply
  2. Brig Bother Post author

    Great stuff thanks Clive, think I can picture it quite well from your description – it looks a bit like that Schlag game where you had throw a bean bag onto a tree thing, except it’s freestanding rather than supported, and I can’t find a picture of.

    Reply
  3. Kniwt

    In case you hadn’t checked lately, Cleops of the vast YouTube archive of BBC/ITV (referenced here a little while back) finally got shut down. Hope y’all got while the getting was good.

    Reply
  4. Mart With An Y Not An I

    I know what he was uploading was ‘not really allowed’ but some of the videos were very rare and some were the first full episodes ever seen on YouTube or Daily Motion (full series of early 70’s Gen Games and a full series of a rare dud 1 series sit-com out of the Croft and Lloyd cannon), so the enevitable content strike was always going to come. Just a case of when not if.

    The latest rash of tape uploads over the past couple of weeks did contain a lot of music in programmes and I was fearful that triggers all sorts of copyright alarms all over the place. Normally, they were really careful dipping sound during some performances, or editing the section out totally.

    A shame, as he was a really good (I assume) chap and had a couple of text converstations with him via the comments under one or two of his videos.

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Yeah, inevitable but sad, recently uploaded an episode of Charlie Williams Golden Shot I don’t think had been seen since the mid-70s, and I had been quite enjoying the It’s a Knockout specials.

      Reply
    1. Oliver

      It’s surprising nobody has attempted a UK revival of Whose Line. It’s a recognisable name and must be incredibly cheap to make – seems like it would be perfect for a smaller channel like Dave, or even Channel 4/5.

      Reply
      1. Steve Williams

        Well, Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson did Fast and Loose a decade ago, which was pretty much the same – but for some reason they didn’t mention Whose Line at all, and promoted it as from the makers of Mock the Week!

        Reply
        1. David B

          Fast and Loose still limps on, to an extent, with clips of David Armand’s musical mimes clocking up millions of hits on YouTube.

          Reply
      1. Ryan

        Hmm… maybe I need to look into subscribing to BritBox… when I do I need to subscribe to BrigBox as well?? 🙂

        Also, side note, more Bank Balance tickets just got released… I just put in for this coming Monday (it’s a “bank holiday” for us where I live). I can spare an hour!

        Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Yep, FOTB Holger has been excited about it for a few weeks now, and it sounds like many of the games are clever and funny.

      Reply
    2. Kniwt

      Here’s a half-hour clip of the finale (auf Deutsch) from the most recent episode. Of note: I think this is the first time I’ve seen actual *cardboard cutouts* used as gameshow audience stand-ins during the Covid era.

      Reply
  5. John R

    I don’t know if it is just a one off to kick off a new series, but ‘The Wall Versus Celebrities’ starts 20 February at 6:40PM…8 episodes which is going to be pretty naff if every episode is indeed ‘Versus Celebrities’

    Reply
    1. Joey Clarke

      I don’t think that’s a good idea to have the celebrity wall go head to head with the last ten minutes of Saturday night takeaway next week.
      People won’t be wanting to miss the end of show performance to see the balls drop. (On the wall not the Lottery)

      Reply
  6. Brekkie

    The trailer doesn’t really sell Bank Balance for me – if that’s the concept through out it feels like it’s a round stretched out to be a show. Something that can hold your attention for 5-10 minutes, but not so much for an hour.

    And if you’re stripping a show you don’t start it on a Wednesday!

    Reply
  7. Crimsonshade

    BBC News have an article/interview with Gordon Ramsey written up on their site where he talks about both the challenges of the restaurant industry in Covid-19 and how he’s been handling it; and also about Bank Balance. Also, sorry Francis – they mention the “idiot sandwich” as something you won’t be hearing on this show.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56060962

    Interestingly the article claims the show starts on Monday 22 February at 9pm – wasn’t it originally announced to start Wednesday?

    Reply
      1. Crimsonshade

        Apologies, somehow my browser pasted the wrong link. Yes, that is the exact article I meant.

        Reply

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