TV classics - Noel's House Party

By Jason Wright (Entertainment Expert)

THROUGHOUT the eighties, the BBC had discovered a great entertainer in Noel Edmonds.  First was the daring Late Late Breakfast Show before the more applauding Saturday Roadshow.  Then in November 1991, the Saturday Roadshow became Noel’s House Party, the BBC’s first live Saturday night show for a long time.

     Broadcast from ‘The Great House’ in Crinkley Bottom, a fictional Westcountry village, the idea behind the show was to have fun, play pranks, make famous people fools, embarrass members of the public and of course, some rewards.  This was in a period where all kinds of Saturday night entertainment were rolled into one.  A bitter ratings war was subsequently launched with ITV’s common Saturday offerings of Catchphrase, Gladiators, Family Fortunes and Blind Date up against BBC’s line-up of Big Break, The Generation Game, House Party and Casualty.

     The features of House Party usually featured Gotcha! where members of the public and sometimes celebrities were fooled with hidden cameras and had to endure a series of practical jokes.  To prove that the show was well and truly live, NTV placed a secret camera in a living room of someone watching the show, and again, celebrities were caught out in this segment on some occasions, most notably Chris Evans, the late Richard Whiteley and Dale Winton.

     The Gunge Tank was yet again no escape for anyone.  Starting off as a phone-in poll between two celebrities to decide who should get the gunging, it later evolved into a tour around the house whilst being soaked in the slimy mess.  The show did give away some prizes, with Grab-a-Grand.  A celebrity would spend up to 60 seconds, depending on the amount of questions a viewer answered correctly, collecting foreign banknotes in a fan booth.  The cash collected was converted into a prize total using the exchange rate rule.  People could also win money in Number Cruncher.  A special phone booth was placed somewhere in Britain and the first person to find it would play the game, a big cash prize if successful but failure resulted in…you guessed it…a gunging!

DUO: Trouble often followed Noel Edmonds and Mr. Blobby!

     However, the best known character of House Party was Mr Blobby, a spotted mascot who would so often or not get himself or Edmonds into trouble in one way or another.  His popularity spurned a large merchandise line and the Christmas Number One in 1993 with his own title song.  With the show pulling in usually around ten million per week, Crinkley Bottom was given its own park at Pleasurewood Hills in Lowestoft, Norfolk for people to experience it firsthand.

     As the show continued to screen throughout the years, drastic improvements were made to try and keep it up-to-date with the growth in other modern gameshows and newer programmes.  However, they didn’t have a great effect; people left disappointed as they believed House Party would be one of the shows that should never have had its format tampered with.  Viewers turned off in their droves and Edmonds went into a contractual dispute with the Beeb, claiming they were responsible to making the tweaks that sent the show downhill.  Eventually, he agreed to try one more series in 1998, with a raft of new features, but designed to try and make House Party look original again.  Sadly, only die-hard fans were watching and the BBC decided enough was enough and axed the show.  The final episode was broadcast on March 20, 1999.

     “It's an overworked expression when people say it's the end of an era but for BBC Television, the Entertainment Department, for me and possibly you, it really is the end of an era. I hope your memory will be very kind to us. After 169 . . . bye.”  Those were Noel Edmonds simple but effective final words on the show.  Following the show’s axing, the BBC has not attempted to launch another show that has similar borderlines to House Party whilst Edmonds vowed never to work for the BBC again.  He has kept that vow to this day, with the exception of presenting a one-off National Lottery special in 2006.  Noel can now be found every weekday presenting the Channel 4 show Deal Or No Deal.

     There can be no question that House Party changed the face of Saturday night television for the BBC but if it wanted to survive longer than eight years, it needed to follow the golden quotation of revamping shows, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’  Sadly, it seemed the BBC weren’t paying close attention.

Bleakley Departs For ITV - Where's The Loyalty?

Last night, ITV announced that they had poached the services of the popular One Show host, Christine Bleakley.  The deal is rumoured to see Bleakley earning £1.5million a year in her new role, which will see her partnered again with old co-host of The One Show, Adrian Chiles on the new ITV breakfast show, which will begin this September.

Christine has been at the centre of a major bidding war for weeks now, between the two major UK broadcasters and part of the deal will not only see her be part of the new breakfast programme, replacing GMTV this summer, but other prime-time projects, including new entertainment and lifestyle shows.  Bleakley, also being well-known for the high-profile girlfriend of prolific Chelsea and England footballer Frank Lampard, was only earning £100,000 a year with the BBC, which wonders how much she had sold out for?  The BBC did offer her a new, much more improved deal, but it seems like that money and the close bond with Chiles seems to be more important than loyalty and trust in her case.

When Adrian Chiles quit the BBC two months ago, largely to replace Steve Rider as the new figurehead of ITV’s football coverage, their plans were to remodel the One Show firmly around Bleakley – whose contract with the Beeb expired this September.  Popular breakfast presenter Chris Evans and comedian Jason Mannford had been signed up to co-host the show, alongside the Northern Ireland golden girl.  They had given Bleakley a new £450,000 a year deal, and a week to mull over the future.  With no contact from Christine, the BBC felt there was little option but to withdraw their very tempting and more secure offer.

The departure of Bleakley follows Chiles out of the BBC door, and with Jonathan Ross also leaving the corporation when his contract ends next month, leaves the nation’s favourite TV channel facing a bit of a shortfall in presenting talent.  The BBC insist that they have made the right decision, by not entering into a bidding war with their main rivals, for a presenter’s services.  I believe that they have made the right decision.  After all, no presenter is more important than the service of the BBC to the British public.

The Bleakley/Chiles combination is no doubt going to be a winning one, and will pull more audiences into ITV at breakfast time, which has suffered from the stale progress of the award-winning GMTV in recent times.  However, the massive money deal that it is giving Christine suggests that they are putting a lot of faith into her abilities, and there is no guarantee that it will definitely work out.  This is a massive gamble for her career and for ITV as a whole, as it will be seen as an expensive flop should things not work out.  Although ITV have won this battle, I think the BBC has made a shrewd move and time will move on with new presenters and new talent, to replace Bleakley and Chiles on The One Show. 

Some must question though, how important is loyalty?