Fighting Talk

Contents

Host

Regular radio hosts

Johnny Vaughan (Radio: 2003-4; TV pilot: 2004; Any Other Business: 8 July - 5 August 2007)

Christian O'Connell (2004-5)

Colin Murray (2005-13, 2016-23)

Christian O'Connell, Jonathan Pearce, Matt Johnson (rotating hosts, 2013-4)

Georgie Thompson [as Georgie Ainslie from early 2015], Josh Widdicombe (rotating hosts, 2014-2016)

Rick Edwards (2023-)

Guest radio hosts

Terry Wogan (9 April 2005)

Gabby Logan (29 October 2005, 13 May 2006, 2 July 2011)

Dickie Davies (11 March 2006)

Richard Bacon (Any Other Business: 24 December 2006; Election Special: 3 May 2010)

Johnny Vaughan (10 March 2007, filling in for Colin Murray who was singing on Fame Academy, also 15 September 2007 and 2 February 2008)

Phil Williams (5 April 2008)

Kelly Dalglish (22 November 2008, and as Kelly Cates on 18 April 2009)

Jimmy Tarbuck (29 November 2008)

Chris Hollins (2 January 2010)

Alan Davies (9 January 2010)

Barry Davies (28 August 2010)

Nick Hancock (23 October 2010, 18 June 2011, 14 January 2012, 5 January 2013)

Jake Humphrey (9 July 2011)

Freddie Flintoff (23 November 2013, 1 March 2014, 5 April 2014)

Jim Rosenthal (31 May 2014)

Justin Moorhouse (13 September 2015, 23 July 2016)

Jason Mohammad (9 January 2016)

Sam Quek (13 November 2021)

Broadcast

World's End for Five Live, 4 October 2003 to present

World's End for BBC Two, 2004 (Pilot)

Synopsis

TV version of The Vaughan's BBC Radio Five Live sporting debates show. Four people who write about, broadcast on and participate in sport (and Graham Taylor) compete for points doled out by Johnny for saying something aggressive, interesting or patriotic about a given sporting topic. Points are deducted for being dull, repetitive, unopinionated or plain wrong.

Various buttons are used by Vaughan to cue in sound effects and video stings (Land of Hope and Glory, a dripping tap, a crying baby) to signify his opinion on what the panellists are saying.

In the final round, Defend the Indefensible, the two top scorers have 20 seconds to put forward a positive argument for a ridiculous proposition, such as "Robert Mugabe should win Sports Personality of the Year".

All in all, quite a fresh take on the panel game genre but it could dearly do with an audience to provide some laffs.

In 2006, the original radio show branched out into Fighting Talk: Any Other Business where the topics were news-based rather than sports.

Inventor

Based on a BBC Radio Five Live format, itself similar to ESPN's Around the Horn.

Champions

A "Champions' League" final was inaugrated in May 2010, held before an audience on the morning of the final of the UEFA men's club competition. It's contested by four of the best performers in the prior nine months of competition.

  • 2010 Bob Mills
  • 2011 Tom Watt
  • 2012 Steve Bunce
  • 2013 Martin Kelner
  • 2014 Justin Moorhouse
  • 2015 Paul Sinha
  • 2016 Paul Sinha
  • 2017 Richard Osman
  • 2018 Richard Osman
  • 2019 Steve Bunce
  • 2020 Elis James
  • 2021 Natalie Pike
  • 2022 Neil Delamere
  • 2023 Bob Mills

Web links

BBC programme page

Wikipedia entry

British Comedy Guide entry

See also

Mark Watson Kicks Off, a television adaptation of the format.

Weaver's Week review (2011) and comparison against Around the Horn.

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