Busman's Holiday

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In early 1987, there was to be an edition of the show featuring ship-workers: however, the programme was not shown, since, as Julian Pettifer explained, it was shortly after the Zeebrugge ferry disaster and it would therefore have been inappropriate to show the contestants being filmed at work. In any case, the sports teachers who had won the previous week won again, so both their trips abroad were shown, followed by another edition of the show with three new teams.
In early 1987, there was to be an edition of the show featuring ship-workers: however, the programme was not shown, since, as Julian Pettifer explained, it was shortly after the Zeebrugge ferry disaster and it would therefore have been inappropriate to show the contestants being filmed at work. In any case, the sports teachers who had won the previous week won again, so both their trips abroad were shown, followed by another edition of the show with three new teams.
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During one of the Sarah Kennedy series, a team of ballroom dancers were, unlike other teams, all allowed to participate in the part of the show whereby the captain asked questions to both the opposing teams. In this case, the captain asked the questions, while the other two did some superb demonstrations of certain dances.
== Catchphrases ==
== Catchphrases ==

Revision as of 21:07, 13 September 2009

Contents

Host

Julian Pettifer (original host)

Sarah Kennedy

Elton Welsby

Co-host

Announcer: Charles Foster

Broadcast

Granada for ITV, 1985 to 1993

Synopsis

Basic premise here is that three teams of people from different professions battle to win an exotic holiday where they have to work.

These three groups (probably swimming pool attendants, vicars and electricity meter readers, always dressed in their normal work-clothes) compete in quizzes based on the worlds of travel and occupations in order to win a working holiday. Cracking.

There were terrific sound effects for the buzzers, something like 'diddle-eh!' and the sound for an incorrect answer, sounding like an electronic Tellytubby 'Eh-oh!' Before Tellytubbies existed, of course.

Host Sarah Kennedy on location in Grenada with the director Jenny Dodd.

The first round was a multiple-choice round on world geography. The second round involved the teams being asked questions on each others' jobs. In the early Julian Pettifer days, two team-members from two of the teams would simply answer questions, while the remaining two would attempt to complete a clever practical brainteaser (such as, relating to the driving instructors, watching a film of a driver deliberately committing driving-errors, and deciding which three would cause him to fail his driving test). This round was always very entertaining, and should not have been changed. Later versions of the round simply involved watching the team in question doing their job, docusoap-style, and questions being asked to both the other teams. One or two of the Sarah Kennedy series also featured each of the team captains being invited out front to ask both the opposing teams individual questions that they themselves had prepared on their own jobs, before Sarah asked the other teams some more questions to be answered on the buzzer. The third round involved all three teams being asked questions on their own jobs (and no doubt feeling embarrassed if they failed to answer correctly, as Sarah Kennedy was always keen to point out!) The final round involved asking questions all about one particular destination. Hilariously, the teams were told that the particular destination was going to be one of four places that they'd been informed about some days before the recording, so the team that did best was the one that did the most research into that destination.

The winning team had already won an European holiday. In the Julian Pettifer-era, they would return the following week to try to win an additional world holiday. In the Sarah Kennedy-era, this changed to an end game, which involved trying to convert the European working holiday to a world holiday by putting forward one team member to answer questions on a random place as chosen by the departures board. In the final series, hosted by Elton Welsby, the end game changed to 'Around The World In 80 Seconds', which involved answering questions on various locations in order to upgrade to a world holiday.

And of course we got to see how last week's winners got on on their holiday, which is, y'know, nice. In the early Julian Pettifer days, the winners of the European holiday would be seen back in the studio, doing just what they were doing at the end of their holiday (such as the dentists playing with clockwork teeth, or the Royal Navy team saluting). Another clever touch that should not have been changed! Like another excellent Granada quiz, namely The Krypton Factor, 'Busman's Holiday' thoroughly deserves to be revived!

Trivia

A celebrity special in 1991 featured TV detectives against sports commentators and Home and Away actors. An gladiatorial battle of intellects, I'm sure you'll agree.

During the Julian Pettifer and Sarah Kennedy eras, there were three teams of three. For the Elton Welsby-series, this changed to two teams of three.

Julian Pettifer used to give the scores with references to the teams' jobs - such as 'The driving instructors are just getting into gear', or 'The coach drivers are, at the moment, slowcoaches!'

On at least one of the Sarah Kennedy series, both Sarah and the team-member competing for the world holiday were, for some bizarre reason (dramatic effect, perhaps?) raised high up on an elevated platform! One can only hope that none of the contestants who played the endgame suffered from vertigo!

On one show, they had genuine bus drivers on the show, against teams consisting of dog groomers and "buskers" (in reality, university students). The bus drivers won! Sometimes, there would be a theme linking the three teams, such as one edition that featured wedding photographers, registrars and rabbis. (The registrars won). However, arguably the most unusual and varied sets of teams were featured over 2 consecutive weeks: firstly, football referees, dinner ladies and traffic wardens. The referees won and returned the following week to beat teams of rock-climbers and nuns!

In early 1987, there was to be an edition of the show featuring ship-workers: however, the programme was not shown, since, as Julian Pettifer explained, it was shortly after the Zeebrugge ferry disaster and it would therefore have been inappropriate to show the contestants being filmed at work. In any case, the sports teachers who had won the previous week won again, so both their trips abroad were shown, followed by another edition of the show with three new teams.

During one of the Sarah Kennedy series, a team of ballroom dancers were, unlike other teams, all allowed to participate in the part of the show whereby the captain asked questions to both the opposing teams. In this case, the captain asked the questions, while the other two did some superb demonstrations of certain dances.

Catchphrases

(Julian Pettifer): "And the captain of the (whichever) team is...."

"No - I can offer that!"

"Forfeits two!"

"...And looking at the scores at the halfway point, we see that...." (followed by the aforementioned references to the teams' jobs).

"Penultimate question!"

(Sarah Kennedy): "Let's go to the destination board!"

"...And who's won? It's the (whichever) team!"

(At the beginning of the show), "And now, please welcome the star of the show - Sarah Kennedy!"

Pictures

A group of clergypeople win a trip to the Vatican City. In the centre is the Rev David Smith, a 'professional' UK game show contestant.
Rev Smith gets a personal audience with the winner of "Poland's Got Talents"

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