Weaver's Week 2009-06-14

Enter, stage left, smiley smiley Carol Smillie, the best advertisement for tooth-whitening substances since the invention of polish. She's invited twenty-four people to the studio, split into four teams of six. There's one captain, and five other players, and all the team live in a particular postcode. Anyone would think they'd designed this in order to run the contestant call line "Get your road on the show". Ahem.

As is the way on television, all twenty-four players have to be introduced to the viewers. Never mind the fact that fifteen of them will just be figures lurking in the background, everyone must have a moment in the sun. Though the producers try to make this bright and breezy, the introductions still occupy the first quarter of the show. Don't just bore us, get to the quizzing.

It's a well-constructed team element, emphasising the knowledge of the majority, and giving a good role to the captain. During the answer period, each person is represented on screen by a little light, which changes colour to match their answer, and this is entirely cool.

First two teams to light their postcode (ie, give two correct answers to the captain's question) progress to the next round. The other two go home with nothing more than the gleam in Smillie's eye.

After the break, the remaining players all answer five more multiple-choice questions, this time both teams and their captains answer. Smillie reminds everyone that there really must be no conferring, otherwise it's a five-point penalty and the question will be offered to the other side. Or disqualification, whichever is worse.

But how much have they won? That's the final round. To win the opening prize of £1000, at least one of the five supporters must have answered the first question correctly. To win £3000, the team must first win £1000, then two must get the second right. If all the steps are in place, and everyone got the final question right, the team wins £25,000, a good half-hour's work in anyone's book. The chance of this happening is small, but then people also beat the Eggheads.

We've already mentioned how we like the team structure, not assigning special responsibility to anyone other than the captain. The presentation is a bright orange-and-purple, which was in fashion in the late 90s, but was replaced too quickly by ice blues. The music irritated us rather, using the same sting throughout the show tends to the tedious.

As for the host: it's smiley smiley Carol Smillie, someone people either hate or find completely anodyne. We're in the latter camp: she could easily be replaced by any other host.

Overall, it's a perfectly find waste of half-an-hour. Not as intellectually stimulating as UC, but nowhere near as depressing as the other channels. Or, indeed, the re-heated tabloid fodder served to the rest of the nation on ITV England's Tonight With Jonathan Maitland programme. Only the Scottish viewers get to see an entertainment programme in this slot; the rest of us had to wait for the show to pop up on Challenge.

Karen Dunbar and Sanjeev Kholi are joined (on the sample episode we heard) by Johnny Ball and Kaye Adams. Round one invites the teams to guess the year from a few clues: the year Elvis married Lisa Marie, the year the UK did well at Eurovision – well, the latter rules out anything in this decade. It's 1967, the year when Johnny Ball compered the ITV Christmas night special, and the camera filming him on the Val Doonican Show blew up and he ended up doing his routine in the dark. None of the other panelists were even born in this year.

Round two is the almost inevitable television theme tune round. Was it Camberwick Green or Trumpton that had the clown turning the roller? Rather than ask the teams to discuss their answers, Gail simply reads out the answers. The teams have written down their answers, and we have to trust that they've been honest. Good job there are no prizes here, otherwise the BBC's Head of Competition Fairness will be coming down like a ton of cookies. There are some quickfire questions on the buzzers, and the BBC's Head of Very Loud Sound Effects has been paying a visit, the bell and buzzer are remarkably loud.

Round four has some Real People talking about films. They're giving clues and quoting lines from a film made during the year; the sooner the teams answer, the better, as they score points and we move on to the next round. It's a rather good radio round, as the contestants are asked to don blindfolds and guess the toys from feel alone. A concept that has the players and the audience literally in the dark. Kaye Adams proves remarkably adept at guessing Kerplunk! from feel alone, not least when she pulls and a marble drops onto her hand.

We can't discuss 1967 without paying some tribute to the Summer of Love. "Scott Mackenzie advising everyone to wear flowers in their hair, obviously not aimed at me," says our host, whose hair is styled in the classic Richard O'Brien look. And we can't have a nostalgia quiz without a music round. It is, quite simply, Bits and Pieces from the Radio 1 Roadshow; a load of snippets from songs, and our teams have to scribble down the singers or group responsible. But there's something even Smiley Miley didn't think of: there's a bonus point for the first person to guess the link between the songs.

Are we up to the quick-fire finale? We're up to the quick-fire finale, a round in which Gail asks lots of questions that wouldn't otherwise fit into the quiz, and offers them on the buzzers to the teams. Who opened Radio 1? How can we sneak in some Paisley pattern? Who reloaded the weapons on The Golden Shot? Is Stanstead really that old? Why does the bell sound like the studio's on fire?

At the end of the show, we have a winner, we have a loser. Far more importantly, we've had a whale of a time. It may be a simple concept, but it's done with great zip and pace, and the good atmosphere carries on throughout the show. And, let's be honest, where else would we hear Johnny Ball shout "Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, and Grubb" to a question asking for the name of all the Trumpton firemen? But which did he miss out? The answer will come later.

There's time for the judging panel to discuss other matters arising from the dishes being cooked: in the sample episode we saw, there was a debate on the relative merits of rare and well-done steak, the latter being more typical of the Gaelic-speaking areas. They also filled time by saying just how stressful the final moments were, how the adrenalin rush may or may not help. The contestants aren't able to hear the gentle guitar music that plays at just the right moments during the show.

The whole experience reminded us of our school cookery exams: as well as the pressure of the television studio, the contestants must contend with a slightly overbearing woman (host Cathy NicDhomhnaill) who flitters around asking how the cooking is going and generally getting in the way. Then the examinees face the opinions of people who aren't going to pull any punches when it comes to their opinions. Judges Domhnall K MacGill-Eain, Maureen NicLeoid and her husband Alasdair MacLeoid are harsh, but fair.

And, like our cookery classes, it all seems to be done in a foreign language. For the benefit of those of us whose Gaelic is a little rusty (or in our case completely non-existent), the show carries in-vision subtitles. They enable us to translate "beetroot", "surf 'n' turf" and "sausages" and count down from five to one. It's an education, this show.