Weaver's Week 2026-03-29

Last week | Weaver's Week Index | Next week

Coming up this week: people who are not going to be parted easily, loads of BAFTA nominations, the House of Games finale, and suggestions for sociology students in search of essay subjects.

Or, Handcuffed to Jonathan Ross. Television's big dog was very responsible for this programme, he was an active presenter and producer, and it felt like he'd been deeply involved with the project from the beginning.

The show was built on the assertion that "Britain has never been more divided". We don't particularly agree; Jonathan might be too young to remember the time when Danegeld was paid to keep the Vikings at bay, but surely he remembers the Wars of the Roses of his youth, or the clashes between Roundheads and Cavaliers that interrupted his career.

To test the assertion – perhaps to expose how false it is – Jonathan and production company 72 Films brought nine pairs of people together. They were meant to be diametric opposites, like chalk and cheese, like oil and water, like fire and ice. Over two weeks, they'd live with each other, they'd go on holiday and to work, they'd be kept isolated for a day, and they'd take part in the final.

And, to ensure they live with each other, the players are handcuffed. A short chain, just a few centimetres long, separated one player's left hand from the other's right hand. The cuffs are on all the time: the pairs are to live together, eat together, sleep in the same bed, dress each other, shower at very little distance. Not so much living in each other's pockets as living with an inseparable companion.

Of course, everyone on the show is a volunteer, and can leave at any time. The pairs have keys to their handcuffs, and can release themselves from the show, from their partner – and release themselves from the £100,000 prize. These keys are kept behind glass, like a fire alarm, so it would have to be a deliberate decision for someone to unlock themselves.

Nine couples started the experiment, in front of an audience at a London studio. All nine couples were together for sunset on the first day. Three of them were separated by sunset on the second day. Baronet Ben and prison officer George didn't even last till midnight, after a tired and emotional Ben was refused access to his phone by the producer. The next morning Reuben, a male chauvinist, was ditched by feminist Jo when she became uncomfortable with the prospect of showering while handcuffed.

Nina, a patient woman, was paired with chatterbox Sara. In retrospect, we might wonder whether the producers showed an appropriate duty of care: Sara was already diagnosed with OCD, and was in a strange and unfamiliar environment, and in last August's uncomfortably hot weather, and was being filmed, and wasn't allowed any personal space. One may reasonably ask if the pairing ought to have been split before it reached the flashpoint of potential violence.

Another couple – model Bambi and farm labourer Claire – split after a few days. If we're to believe the story shown on screen, all of these "uncuffings" were spur-of-the-moment decisions, they all followed a heated row between the pair. And, in this column's mind, each uncuffing came because one of the pair believed their label had come to define them. Baronet. Chauvinist. Chatterbox. Beauty. This column does not wish to assign fault – we'd not last fourteen hours under those conditions, let alone fourteen days – but we do wish to note the common circumstances of each uncoupling.

Other couples survived, and they threw light on the reasons why others uncoupled. Lin, a right-wing telly grifter, was paired with Green Party councillor Frank. When they weren't talking about politics, this pair were great friends, people of a similar generation who had a lot in common and got on like a house on fire. But when they returned to their labels – "right-wing", "green" – it was as if all the common ground was a continent away.

The difference separating Frank and Lin from other couples was that they treated their label an adjective, a role each was playing in parts of their lives; a fact about them but not their defining characteristic. For people like the baronet, the label is an identifier, indistinguishable from the whole person. Sociologists are very familiar with this concept, elucidated back in the 1950s by Erving Goffman in "The Presentation of Self". (One for A-level or undergrad students in search of an extended essay: explore the concepts of Goffman and subsequent theories, as demonstrated on Handcuffed. This column would genuinely be interested to read the results.)

Frank and Lin were one of five couples who lasted to the end of the experiment. We got the impression that this was a bit of a surprise to the producers, their final challenge was built for just three couples and they had to come up with a lukewarm elimination game on a boat. But we'll come to that shortly.

Handcuffed told its story across six episodes, and those episodes went sort-of roughly chronologically, but with occasional flashbacks and some slight time shuffling. The other couples who made the final were: Angie (petrolhead) and Morag (hippie); Anthony (rich) and Tilly (poor); Bob (bigoted man) and Chris (Black man); Charlie (prudish woman) and Rob (gay porn).

To avoid information overload, we didn't meet all nine of these couples in the first episode. Far from it; we met just three couples, and one of those pairs was split before the end of the ep. Next show, another couple goes, and we meet three more. And so it went.

We viewers never had to juggle more than five couples at any one time, and in most episodes we were concentrating on four stories or less. And that is a creative choice, and we think it's a genius creative choice. Most reality shows introduce their entire cast in the first ten minutes, and we then have to remember which was the coder and which was the accountant, who had a pair of teenagers and who had an infant. Handcuffed kept it simple: here are some people we've been introduced to, we'll let you get acquainted with them before cutting to the next pair, and eventually we'll introduce the others.

Inevitably, this all meant that one couple would be with the show from the start to the final, a storyline to keep us coming back. And they'd probably get a lot of screen time, more than the couples introduced in the second week of the programme.

What did surprise us was how, about three minutes before the end of episode four, we're introduced to Morag and Angie with a very brief clip. They only had a similarly brief clip in the next episode, and even the final challenge seemed to edit around them a bit. There's doubtless a story as to why this couple were barely featured, and it's not entered the public sphere just yet, and that sort of gap leads people to speculate. (This column's best guess: the camera following them was faulty, and all of the footage was hopelessly dark.)

Handcuffed was also a show about personal growth, about confronting one's prejudices and finding that – actually – the other person is quite alright. We've spoken about Lin and Frank being divided only by their party politics. Elsewhere, Charlie was surprised at Rob's job, and Charlie's husband was really annoyed and asked what the neighbours would think. "Oh, you're some sort of entrepreneur, like us" is what the neighbours actually thought.

Bob made an apology video for racist comments he had made in the past, and subsequently joined with Chris's youth work. Anthony learned to check his privilege, count his blessings, and had his eyes opened by Tilly's work with homeless people. And that's just the bits we remember off the top of our head. Handcuffed changed lives, many of its contestants went on what sociologists like Giddens might call a variation in their own self-image after perceiving another's moral qualities. The rest of us call it (shudder!) a transformative journey.

The final challenge featured a staggered start, couples answered questions about each other until they got one wrong, last team standing won a one-hour head start. Then repeat for the second team, and the third team an hour after that.

What was it a head start in? A race. Literally, a journey: from Loch Lomond to Portmeirion, then to Potters' Field in London, and the finish line on a bus at London's Embankment. The pairs had no phones, no money, just the changes of clothes and bedding in their backpacks. And, in fairness, the producers gave them train tickets to get from Glasgow to Llandudno and then on to London.

It all meant the prog's final half-hour went a bit Jet Lag, following these familiar faces as they tried to do unfamiliar things and cadge lifts and grovel to taxi drivers and make friends and generally rely on the kindness of strangers. Adding to the Jet Lag comparisons, we know that the teams weren't allowed to travel after dark. And we saw the footage from the final was recorded by a camera operator on a mobile phone, small and compact and useful in case an emergency befell the team.

Who won? Well, the prize was taken by Charlie and Rob, they split £100,000 between themselves. We can reasonably argue that runners-up Tilly and Anthony were also winners, they became close and intense friends, to the extent that Anthony asked Tilly to give him away when Anthony renewed his vows with his husband.

Handcuffed had its moments. The first episode left us feeling grubby, some later episodes seemed to be built for clickbait. By the final episode, we were cheering for all the couples in the final – there would not be a winner we couldn't root for in some way.

Worth a watch? Yeah. We don't regret seeing this show to the finish, and it moved from "slightly dreading the next ep" to "go on you lot".

Would we welcome another series of Handcuffed? Oddly enough, no. The idea has been done, the experiment has been conducted. Any future series will be tainted by the show we've just reviewed. And the only way it can go further is by being crueller, nastier, by being mean-spirited. And we hope Jonathan Ross has learned to be better than that crass sensationalism.

Mastermind did its best to reduce the size of the European General Knowledge Question Mountain. Tomas Stevenson was first up, he had had a grade-a nightmare in his specialist round (studio albums of Bruce Springsteen) but bounced back with ten points – a fine general knowledge round in any episode. We were sorry to see a post-credit caption reporting Tomas's death, our thoughts to his family and friends and shipmates. Pete Simmonds (Hieronymous Bosch) was a little more considered in his specialist, but blitzed general knowledge like there's no tomorrow, knocking up 14 points with a pass.

Ross Taylor had missed one question – the last – on Clint Eastwood's Westerns. And he snapped out answers to the questions, as soon as Clive had finished reading, he was in, and he was in with the answer. Fifteen points in general knowledge is a superb result. Eric Davis had missed one question – the last-but-one – on Cyrille Regis. He also snapped out answers to the questions, he was in as soon as Clive had finished, but Eric was a bit more miss, and "only" scored ten. Ten is fine, it's ten more than this column – and our reader, probably – has achieved!

So Ross Taylor, a publishing director, booked the third place in the final.

"He gave the vacuum flask to the world." "Sounds like something my dad would do." William Dewar invented the Thermos flask, and gave it away for nothing. That's one of the facts from University Challenge, where Manchester beat Sheffield by 185-135. A comparatively rare edition with all eight players getting at least one starter right, though Kai Madgwick again led with seven of 'em. Manchester were never headed, a few times pulling out leads of 50 before almost being caught, and then accelerating to be 80 ahead with four minutes to play which proved uncatchable. Sheffield knew the starters, and when they were first on the buzzer tended to be right, but when Madgwick is on fire they are unstoppable.

Some stats. Manchester a very decent 57% bonus rate, and they got 51% of all questions faced – the first team to get more right than wrong since Sheffield's first match in the group phase back in January. Sheffield only heard one fewer set of bonuses, but their bonus rate was just 37%, and one cannot win UC with that low rate. Just the one penalty this week, buzzes were accurate and swift. Manchester remain strong on History, Leisure, and Mixed Bag questions, but very weak on Philosophy and Literature; will these areas prove their comeuppance in the semi-final?

"Do I look like the sort of person who would know an Ed Sheeran song?" Laurence Llewellyn Bowen twirled his moustache as the evil saboteur. Jacqui Joseph was thereabouts all week without ever quite being on top of the pile. Amy Gledhill profited when there were rounds on pop music – she did actually know some Ed Sheeran songs. And Tim Vine was sharp on wordplay questions, the Punmeister's skill will surprise nobody. House of Games finished with three champions' weeks, this one could have gone any particular way at any time, and the result – a tie between Tim and Amy – was quite fair.

This concludes the current series of House of Games (3). We'll leave you with a link to Daniel Markhurst's Semi-Official House of Games Statistics Sheet. Have they played more Rhyme Time than Distinctly Average? Who picked the House of Games electric toothbrush? Can anyone win with just five points? And where is Kazakhstan?

Nominations are out for the BAFTA Craft and Television awards. Game shows and wonderful behind-the-scenes people up for the gongs are:

• Director: Multi-Camera
  • Ben Archard, Eddie Lewis, Marieke Barker (The Celebrity Traitors)
  • Ben Hardy (Last One Laughing)
• Entertainment Craft Team
  • Ben Archard, Siggi Rosen-Rawlings, James Tinsley, Stuart Frossell, Martin Adams, Nathan Lindley (The Celebrity Traitors)
  • Diccon Ramsay, Rikki Finlay, Mat Weekes, Ben Norman, James Tinsley, Robert Mansfield (Squid Game: The Challenge)
• Sound: Factual
  • Sound Team (The Celebrity Traitors)
• Daytime
  • The Chase
  • Richard Osman's House of Games (3)
• Entertainment
  • Last One Laughing
  • Would I Lie to You
• Entertainment Performance
  • Bob Mortimer (Last One Laughing)
  • Claudia Winkleman (The Celebrity Traitors)
  • Lee Mack (The 1% Club)
• Factual Entertainment
  • Race Across the World
• Reality
  • The Celebrity Traitors
  • Squid Game Colon The Challenge
• Memorable moment
  • Alan Carr wins The Celebrity Traitors
  • Bob Mortimer and Richard Ayoade's speed date, Last One Laughing

Awards will be given at events on 26 April and 10 May.

The RTS Programme Awards were given out this week. Two of our programmes won: Last One Laughing in the Comedy Entertainment category, with The Celebrity Traitors taking Entertainment & Reality.

Nipping back to Handcuffed, and we see that Channel 4 has had decent shows hosted by Jonathan Ross and Secret Genius by Alan Carr. Quite clearly, this is where The Hunt went wrong, should have had Cat Burns hosting. Channel 4's game of tag moves in the schedules from Monday – vacating the 9pm spot and turning up at 10pm. Expect a review on 12 April, and for this column to nag you about not watching it for a few years afterwards.

This week, Race Across the World returns (BBC1, Thu), and Have I Got News for You is back (BBC1, Fri). Live events mean a change for Great Local Menu, the cookery show is on Wednesday to Friday (BBC2). It's the final of Counterpoint (Radio 4, Sun).

Easter weekend means a few special programmes, including Harry from The Traitors goes to Rome (BBC1, Thu) and some new Pointless (BBC1, from Fri). The University Challenge Boat Race is on Channel 4 (Sat). Next Sunday brings us a new run of Round the Island Quiz (Radio 4), and I'm a Celebrity South Africa begins on Easter Monday (VM1 and ITV).

We'll be back at some point next weekend with a brief news round-up.

To have Weaver's Week emailed to you on publication day, receive our exclusive TV roundup of the game shows in the week ahead, and chat to other ukgameshows.com readers, sign up to our Google Group.

Last week | Weaver's Week Index | Next week