Those Hilarious British Panel Shows
This autumn will mark the 25th anniversary of my first book publication, Best of the Britcoms, celebrating the finest of British situation comedies between 1975 and its publication date in 1999. I deliberately limited its scope to sitcoms, rather than include sketch/variety programs, quiz shows, and others that tend to fall into a category the BBC has long-designated officially as “Light Entertainment.”
Having discovered a number of very addictive British comedy panel shows in the past year or so, I’d like to share just a few of them here with my fellow Americans. At a later date, we can cover a few more.
First of all, there have been many, MANY quiz/game/panel programs on British TV (BBC, ITV, Channel 4) in the past few of decades, some of which are still on the air, perhaps with different hosts than when they began. Some programs are news/information oriented yet are also played for laughs (Have I Got News for You), while others exist more for their comedy than for any fleeting educational value. And the more you explore these programs and view several episodes of each, the more familiar the British celebrity participants will become to us Yanks.
Each of the programs described below can be seen on BritBox (if you subscribe) and YouTube (no subscription necessary).
Please be warned that most of this column consists of several video clips of varying lengths , out of hundreds available to view — some are excerpts, others are compilation clips, two are full-length half hour episodes— so before you continue, I suggest you either make sure you have ample free time to view them as you read this piece, or save this for when you do have time. Or, at least sample a minute or two of each now as you read along, and perhaps come back to see them in their entirety later. They’re very much worth viewing uninterrupted.
Let’s begin with Would I Lie to You?
The BBC show premiered in June of 2007, with comedian Angus Deayton as host, and with permanent opposing team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell, both popular for their respective TV comedy programs. Deayton, after a sex scandal covered heavily in the British tabloids, was replaced in 2009 by actor/comedian/impressionist Rob Brydon.
Lee Mack is a stand-up comedian and creator/writer/star of the long-running sitcom Not Going Out. Brydon has said of Mack, “He is many, many things. The one overarching thing I’d say about him is that he has the quickest mind of anybody — and I mean anybody — I have ever met.”
David Mitchell rose to prominence starring in several TV sketch shows with collaborator Robert Webb, including The Peep Show. On Would I Lie To You? Mitchell excels at using logic and semantics in his questioning of opposing team members, so as to make their simple attempts at an explanation somehow sound ludicrous (he is married to Victoria Coren Mitchell, who is a frequent guest panelist on several programs, and who herself is host of another long-running but “straight” quiz show, Only Connect).
The format of Would I Lie to You? is basically that of a parlor game. For each show, two celebrity guests join each of the team captains. The teams compete as each player reveals unusual facts and embarrassing personal tales for the evaluation of the opposing team. Some of these are true, some are not, and it is the panelists’ task to decide which is which. None of the participants are allowed to know their “truths” before reading them out loud during the show. Just about all of the guest panelists through the years have been comedians or actors on sitcoms or sketch shows, while others have been well-known for their work in other areas of the media. Even an occasional sports star or singer has taken part as a panelist on the show.
While there is a point system in place for the competition, nobody cares much about the score. The odd “facts” and subsequent interrogations about their truthfulness have always been the core of the show, giving the comedian panelists plenty of room for spontaneous and clever verbal riffs off the top of their heads.
Here’s a classic exchange between David Mitchell and Lee Mack, showcasing their on-air repartee (they’re actually close friends):
The guest panelist who has appeared more than any other has been comedian Bob Mortimer, whose outlandish stories are always guaranteed to keep everyone in hysterics — and, more often than not, turn out be true. Here he is during an especially unforgettable turn reading his card:
Another segment of the show is called “This is my…”, in which an ordinary guest is introduced by their first name only, takes the stage, and stands without speaking as each member of a chosen team explains how he or she knows the guest — usually from a chance meeting under unlikely circumstances. After the opposing team chooses which story is the most believable, the guest reveals which panelist has told the true tale.
Here is a relatively recent full half-hour episode:
Regular and careful viewing of Would I Lie to You? and other current panel quiz shows will lead to the realization that there are about a dozen on-air comedy participants who tend to bounce from one program to another and back again — and some even host their own quiz shows when not appearing as guests on the others. It’s been an almost incestuous cabal of comedians and light comic actors passing through each other’s programs, and, with such regular appearances, inevitably make themselves recognizable to even casual viewers in the U.S.
But I will say that there are not nearly as many American comedians who possess the wit, speed, and spontaneity of those I’ve seen on these British programs (with the exception of the discontinued American version of British improv show, Whose Line Is It, Anyway?) And those pre-arranged chats and schticks on the late-night American talk shows pale in comparison.
Unlike the BBC’s family friendly Would I Lie to You? the game show 8 Out of 10 Cats, on the commercial Channel 4, and with a timeslot after the 10:00 p.m. watershed mark, is definitely R-rated, due to the language allowed, including every four-letter word you know, and perhaps a few you don’t know, as well as references and occasional sight gags of a very adult nature. The host is often controversial and ubiquitous comedian Jimmy Carr, who seems to host about half the quiz/panel programs currently on British TV.
The first regular competing team captains were comedians Sean Lock and Jon Richardson, each a master of deadpan delivery.
If you’re an American who is accustomed to watching fairly innocuous network TV game shows, you may need to get past the initial shock of hearing such naughty and/or vulgar words flow so freely among the participants on the British programs. If that’s not a problem for you, then you can joyfully succumb to the madness, wit, and comedy free-for-all that’s the real purpose behind 8 Out Of 10 Cats.
The questions for each round are based on results of renown public opinion surveys (hence the title 8 Out Of 10 Cats) but again, the structure of the game serves as merely a pretense by which the comedians embark on comic ramblings related to current events (some of their diatribes are clearly prepared or excerpted from their stand-up routines, while others are genuinely spontaneous).
A compilation clip of some memorable moments:
Things went a step further — and more outrageous — in 2012, with the creation of the hybrid series, 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.
This requires a little explanation…
The “straight” version of Countdown, which premiered in November of 1982, challenges competing teams to choose nine random letters of the alphabet per round, and then, with a 30-second clock ticking, must come up with the longest word they can using only those nine letters. In the math rounds, a set of random numbers 1–100 are chosen, and a goal number is displayed. The contestants must use any manipulation of the chosen numbers they can (adding some together, multiplying others, etc.) to reach the goal number, or come as close to it as possible — also to be done in 30 seconds.
In January of 2012, Channel 4 developed a series of specials, beginning with “mash-up night”, merging two shows to form a special edition of the pair, as part of the channel’s 30th-anniversary celebrations. Among other programs, the production teams on Countdown and 8 Out Of 10 Cats joined forces to combine the formats of the two shows. As part of the merger, both Rachel Riley and Susie Dent assumed their roles from Countdown (Rachel handling the numbers and letters at the board, Susie checking words in the dictionary), while Carr took on the mantle of host, with comedians Sean Lock (who died in 2021) and Jon Richardson as competing captains.
The resulting comedy is, in a word, wonderful. In another word, hilarious. As for the rest of the words, I’d rather not repeat them here. This is a PG-13 column.
In a typical episode (which runs about 45 minutes), the game itself doesn’t even begin until we’re nearly 20 minutes in; Carr begins with small talk and asks each contestant to explain the “mascot” or good-luck charm they’ve brought with them—which is really just an excuse to display a gag prop, read a racy poem, or offer whatever they have prepared that has inspired them to generate laughs.
The comedian guest panelists on the show provide genuinely uproarious moments, as do the various intentional distractions and stunts Jimmy undertakes on center stage as the contestants struggle to concentrate.
As for the show’s lovely ladies, Susie Dent (on the left) and Rachel Riley…
Rachel is a gorgeous math genius with a degree in Applied Mathematics from Oxford, and who can solve the math problems on the show quicker than the contestants can complete them. She can also dazzle with tricks such as instantly identifying the order number of any letter of the alphabet (e.g. “r” is the 18th letter). She replaced Carol Vorderman on the original Countdown in 2008 and has been known to unleash her share of clever retorts to Carr’s caustic comments.
Her Jewish mother’s family escaped the Russian pogroms, and Rachel has been active as an anti-racism campaigner. She received an MBE in 2023 for her services to Holocaust education and antisemitism awareness.
Susie Dent has written over a dozen books on lexicography and history of the English language and word origins. She also hosts her own podcast. Her accomplishments are regularly mocked by Carr as little more than sleep inducers, but Susie has said that she enjoys being mocked, as it makes her feel more a part of the gang on the show.
This clip ends with one of Carr’s most notorious jokes on the show (directed at Susie):
Carr has demonstrated that he can take a joke, too, as he finds himself on the receiving end of many classic barbs. More recently, he has also been on the receiving end of jokes and references to his hair transplants and cosmetic surgery — and, of course his distinctive haw-haw-haw laugh (which is genuine, not contrived):
In 2012 he got into heavily-publicized trouble with tax avoidance allegations involving an off-shore shell company on the island of Jersey, a self-governing dependency of the United Kingdom. Carr supposedly received illegitimate advice from his accountant but admitted to a serious lapse of judgement, and to his credit blamed no one but himself. A classic episode of 8 Out Of 10 Cats, shortly after it all went public, had the panelists mercilessly dropping references and jokes about Carr’s financial faux pas for the entire half-hour episode. The condensed version:
Viewing figures of the episode of the show, recorded on the day of his apology and broadcast the following day, almost doubled compared with the previous week.
At the end of the day, if you are, like me, an Anglophile who doesn’t get distracted by various British accents and local references, both Would I Lie to You and 8 Out Of 10 Cats (the regular version and Countdown version) are prime examples of the genre, for whenever you’d like to laugh long and hard without returning to the same old stuff.
There are several more programs of this ilk to talk about — including even more hosted by Carr, and a few that are actually hosted by others — and we will take a look at those in the near future.
Until next time…
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Other television-related articles of mine that might be of interest to you:
“Perry Mason” and its Entertaining Imperfections | by Garry Berman | June, 2024 | Medium
“Television Stars Who Went From Hits to Flops” (pt.1): https://medium.com/@garryberman/television-stars-who-went-from-hits-to-flops-c21205caa1bd
“Retro Review: Pan Am” https://medium.com/@garryberman/retro-review-pan-am-2afc7af35905
“Has “Fawlty Towers” Been Overrated?” | by Garry Berman | May, 2024 | Medium
“Television’s Greatest Sitcom Dad?” https://garryberman.medium.com/televisions-greatest-sitcom-dad-ef2dab761525
“A Mother’s Day Tribute to our Funniest Sitcom Moms” https://medium.com/@garryberman/a-mothers-day-tribute-to-our-funniest-sitcom-moms-68f9122538a8
“Breaking the Fourth Wall (in comedy)” https://medium.com/@garryberman/breaking-the-fourth-wall-in-comedy-51edfa9f88f0
“Comedy to Die For: When Death Rears it’s Head in Sitcoms” https://medium.com/@garryberman/comedy-to-die-for-when-death-rears-its-head-in-sitcoms-7a51cb0acc32
“Saying Goodbye to ‘Modern Family’” https://medium.com/@garryberman/saying-good-bye-to-modern-family-73897235416d
“No Laughs, Please: Our Greatest Comedians as Dramatic Actors” https://medium.com/@garryberman/no-laughs-please-37fdf614e85a
“Fifty Years of ‘The Odd Couple’ on TV” https://medium.com/@garryberman/fifty-years-of-the-odd-couple-on-tv-part-i-62a0eac93520
“My Funny Valentine: Comedy’s Real-life Married Couples” https://medium.com/@garryberman/my-funny-valentine-comedys-real-life-married-couples-1f0605e2caca
“The First Person to be Censored on TV was…Eddie Cantor?” https://medium.com/@garryberman/eddie-cantor-the-first-person-to-be-censored-on-tv-78b56c68cae1
“Mary Kay and Johnny: Television’s First Sitcom” https://medium.com/@garryberman/mary-kay-and-johnny-televisions-first-sitcom-835fec303b5e
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