Déjà News

A fast-moving quiz from the BBC sound archives.

Round one is the obvious round: play a clip from the archives, and teams race to buzz in to name the event. Two points if they can do so, and a bonus mark if the team can identify the year. Right answers unlock three bonus questions, just for that team, they're not thrown across to the other side. In both pilot episodes, the quiz result was decided here.

Vox pops form the setting for the second round, little contributions from the public who are talking about something topical. But what are they talking about? Our players can guess after each clip: three points if the team are right after one clip, two after two, one after all three clips.

Round three asks teams to order events within a decade, illustrated by short clips. Whoever's in the lead gets a choice of two decades prepared by the producers. One for naming each news story, three for getting all three clips in the right order.

Next up is voice notes contributed by listeners, describing some news events from their lifetime. The teams are told the listener's age and asked to name the event. Nifty idea, and the words of young children can be quite entertaining.

The most difficult round next: three clips are played, each associated with a number. Do some arithmetic on the numbers to produce a final total. This is a fiendish way to earn five points, the operations are small, there's no tolerance for being one year out.

The show ends with a "complete the quotations" round, three words are left off the end of a clip, buzz in and name them for a mark.

If it's renewed, we expect the programme to evolve like Have I Got News for You did in its early years.

The Radio Times preview said, "Two teams of two mustard-keen members of the public compete to identify the story covered (anything from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the engagement of a pop icon), winning bonuses for the finer points. Middling to difficult for my brain and, golly gosh, these clips are a reminder of just how posh everyone used to sound on the radio."

One of four quiz shows given two-episode pilot runs during summer 2026: the others were Bookmarks, Your Number's Up, and Around the World in 80 Ways. Weaver's Week reviewed them all.