This widely popular surreal comedy quiz is making a comeback to our TV screens, featuring most of the original line-up. Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer host the show once more with team captain Ulrika Jonsson, joined this series by comedian Jack Dee to captain the opposing team. Much in demand comedy actor Matt Lucas has also found time to return to the show as the ‘big baby’ scorekeeper, George Dawes.
A one-off 2008 Christmas special was aired to mark the 15th anniversary of the show’s first transmission. This proved that the cult show still had the audience pulling power and a new six-part series was commissioned. The recording has now been completed at BBC Television Centre and the first show can be seen this autumn.
The show features some new elements alongside old favourites, which helped this bizarre but hilarious quiz show to become so popular. With the personalities of the original format going on to have successful careers in their own right it seems they are relishing re-creating the chemistry they shared in the original series.
Although the set has broadly kept its original look, the graphics on the desks and backgrounds have been updated and given a more surreal design by Jane Tomblin. Developing this new look, LD Martin Kempton was asked by Vic and Bob to introduce more colour and interest to the backgrounds on the studio’s cyclorama. This includes custom gobos and shapes, echoing aspects of the graphics on the set and some sky and cloud effects, perhaps evoking the surreal paintings of Magritte and Dali.
Other parts of the show such as ‘George’s Song’ and some of the games have yet more looks, often with striking colours and bold designs. Martin explained - ‘With a show like this there is no point in being subtle. The broad style of comedy calls for some things I would never dream of doing on any other programme but here it seems entirely appropriate to go along with the fun!’
Martin was keen not to lose the ‘white-out’ look completely, since this was the show’s distinctive feature in the early series. However, it is only used fleetingly once or twice in these new recordings. In fact, Martin lit the previous two series back in 2001 and 2002, when he began to introduce colour to the show, which Vic and Bob really liked. They asked for more and thanks to the very large moving light rig also supplied by RML back then he was able to offer plenty of different looks.
However, Martin Kempton explained that on this new series he had a much smaller lighting budget to play with, making the aspirations of the two presenters particularly challenging! Martin’s initial design had to be pared down to the absolute essentials. Nevertheless, thanks to the range of equipment offered by RML he was able to come up with the goods. He said ‘I hope Vic and Bob were happy with the results. Certainly, I had complimentary comments from director Ian Trill and producer Lisa Clark.’
Richard Martin Lighting provided Stage Zooms for the custom gobos and for gobo washing on the floor, Mac 500s to provide discs of colour on the cyc, Mac 600s for floor colour, VL3000 washes for cyc colour, Chromafloods for pools of colour on the cyc and Chromastrips in the ‘Dove From Above’.
Highly experienced operator Andy Dobbs used a Compulite Vector and the Galaxy operators for the studio’s generic lights were Darren Lovell, Dave Knott and Andy Clark, on different shows.
Martin Kempton said that he was particularly happy with the kit provided by RML. ‘I have used the company as my first choice for automated lighting for over a decade and see no reason to change now! They always keep up with the latest gear available but when you need to hire some old favourites, perhaps to keep costs low, their kit is still as well maintained and reliable as ever.’