The Railway Carriage Game
Host
Co-hosts
Team captains: Lennie Bennett and Stan Boardman
Broadcast
BBC1, 9 January to 13 February 1985 (6 episodes)
Synopsis
Old-school comedy panel game in which the usual 1980s panel-game participants (Liza Goddard, Norman Collier, Stan Boardman, Lionel Blair et al) were given well-known sayings to slip seamlessly into improvised scenes (e.g. Er, we're taking cotton to Lancashire, cheese to Devon, coals to Newcastle...) Only tactic of any value was to try to put in as many other phrases as possible as a red herring for the other team who were guessing the mystery phrase.
The first situation the contestants were placed into was always a railway carriage (hence the title) but thereafter it could be anything.
Trivia
According to Gyles Brandreth's diary, "Lennie Bennett's mother died on the morning of the [first] recording, but he soldiered on magnificently".