Weaver's Week 2026-07-26

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Over the next several months, we're going to take a look at some of the game shows from ancient history: the 1990s. This column has reviewed many of the great shows of the era, whether it's in an obituary for the host, or as a piece of nostalgia, and in the case of Today's the Day as a piece of nostalgia for a piece of nostalgia.

For this series, we're going to look at some of the other programmes. Experiments that didn't quite work. Schedule fillers. Programmes made to show off technology, or to satisfy sponsors. All of them are very much shows that went out.

Our "Acceptable in the Nineties" series begins in the 1980s. Forty minutes to midnight on New Year's Eve, to be precise. Channel 4 have just finished showing The Pirates of Penzance, and the night's NFL coverage doesn't start till ten minutes past midnight. Heading live in to the new decade, it's Julian Clary.

Julian who? Julian Clary, a camp comedian who made no secret of his homosexuality (which, in 1989, still caused eyebrows to be raised and mouths to tut). He'd been on the alternative comedy scene in London for most of the 1980s, often under the alias of "The Joan Collins Fan Club". Clary would occasionally turn up on shows like Saturday Live and Tonight With Jonathan Ross, often with Fanny the Wonderdog in tow.

Julian Clary had become much more famous at the start of 1989, as the co-host of ITV's Saturday night show Trick or Treat. Mike Smith was the main host, and the programme was good-natured knockabout fun with prizes ranging from the awesome to the awful. It's loosely based on Let's Make a Deal, except there was no dealing and – with Julian around – lots and lots of camping.

Trick or Treat had not set the world on fire, it had not lit up ITV's schedule in the first quarter of the year, and it was no surprise that the show wasn't renewed. Clary was therefore free to develop his own format, which turned out to be Sticky Moments. This episode came at the end of the first series, and featured a full studio audience of young Channel 4 viewers. "They're wild and frisky, aren't they!" exclaims our host.

Julian is dressed in a red chiffon lattice top, worn over a modest black vest, with a decorative collar around his neck. He has a slightly spiky hairdo on top of an undercut, again quite a fashionable look for the era.

The stage has a lot going on: the centre feature is a fountain, except it's squirting out little beads of plastic and doesn't involve any running water. There are paper cutouts and decorations on the back wall, as was the style at the time. A small raised platform is at the back edge of the stage away from the audience, giving a little height to the studio; a column in the backdrop has some pigeons around the base. Apparently, this is Trafalgar Square, which they're not visiting tonight because they might bump into someone undesirable like Jim Davidson.

Julian introduces his pianist Russell Churney, and his Pointless friend Hugh Jelly. And then he gets down to the business of the game, by deigning to have some contestants on his game show. Blimey, what an idea! A game show with actual contestants! Next thing we know, they'll have some prizes worth winning!

Anyway. Let's meet the contestants. Hedley from North London, who is wearing a cardboard cutout of a pigeon on his head, and wears a grey suit and tie. Hedley, mate, have you come to the right programme, should you be attending BBC2's A Night With Dame Margot Fonteyn? We also meet Sarah, a student from Oxford in a pleasant pink top; her new year's resolution is to give up coming on shows like these.

Two more contestants? No, three more contestants! Mother and daughter Anna and Katie from Leyton Buzzard; and Stuart from Stevenage, another chap who wears a smart suit. Blimey, the fashions really have changed, these days we don't even see suits in a standard office. All of the contestants are standing behind podia in the shape of a whippet's head.

Eight minutes in, and we're finally getting into some sort of game show content. "True or false: Stock Aitken and Waterman now have more money than Belgium." Julian walks between the various podia, so we get lots of footage of him passing behind the fountain. There's a certain tone to the questions "True or false: the Filofax is a well-known contraceptive." "True or false: until November, Berlin had Europe's worst erection."

After a commercial break, the show continues. "Much more fun than Cilla Black's having on the other side." (checks cast list) Michael Aspel, Natalie Cole, Phil Collins And His Amazing Paintpot, Jason Donovan, Mick Hucknall, Hale and Pace, Queen (the band), and John Suchet. Tepid and stale, but they could actually repeat this if they wanted to. Over on Channel 4, Julian is going to give new years resolutions for people, but for whom? "I resolve to reign supreme for another ten years, and move Denis into the spare bedroom." Corks, the sort of person Cilla Black would give a cheer for.

Should Ken Barlow go back to Deirdre? This must be a plot from Coronation Street, a topical insert of the day. Sarah the contestant thinks that one of the resolutions was made by Stuart the contestant over the way; it is live television, and we get what we get. Scores are declaimed by Hugh Jelly in a very loud voice.

Then they try to do some link-ups with famous faces around Europe: can they bring the line up to Paris, East Berlin, or Sydney? And will everyone look remarkably like Hugh Jelly? Scripted silliness.

The "Aaah" game is all about questions that begin with "R". For instance, "which cars, with the initials RR, are the ultimate status symbol?" "Rolls Royce?" "No, Reliant Robin." That's comedy, take an idea and subvert the expected answer. If this were a serious quiz, we'd be grouching about it not being particularly fair, but it's twenty minutes to midnight on New Year's Eve, and quite frankly the idea of having a question paired with a non-impossible answer is quite sufficient.

A musical interlude next, a comedy song from Younger and Parker; she plays a harmonica and bangs a tambourine, he plays a guitar. "I'm giving up drinking till the crack of dawn", as many people were saying about an hour later. Or – if their pub had failed to secure a late license and had to close at 10.30 this Sunday night – as some people said about an hour ago.

Back in the studio, Julian asks the contestants to move from their spots and go and stand behind some umbrellas. This is a surprisingly difficult task for some. When there, he gives them a minute or so to paint a picture of a party evoking the "spirit of the nineties". Julian complains that the pianist is playing lift music, and is much happier with a boogie-woogie stomp.

Sarah's posted a miniature rainbow, segments in green yellow and purple. Hedley has an abstract picture of people enjoying themselves under the sun. Katie and Anna offer "fun", a champagne glass and feathers, and a person having fun. Finally, Stuart shows us a yellow face with a black smile. Julian gives out points on an entirely arbitrary basis, and might or might not respond to the audience's cries of "more!"

The show loses the bottom two players, they get consolation prizes of Fanny the Wonder Dog statues, flowers, and a bottle of Champagne. Look, it's a few minutes to midnight on New Year's Eve, of course they're going to push the boat out a bit.

Some acting for the final two players, who are going to act out the most important event of the 1980s: Alexis falling over the balcony in the final episode of Dynasty. We're going to have to explain this, aren't we? Right, Dynasty was an expensive and glossy American drama series, shown over here in primetime on BBC1. Alexis was the scheming and conniving woman, the character everybody loved to hate, played with camp brilliance by Joan Collins. And remember how Julian Clary went under the soubriquet "The Joan Collins Fan Club"? That's why. Dynasty was as camp and as arch as The Traitors, and almost as popular.

On the set, Sarah gets into her character, with a cod American accent as well. Hedley delivers his lines in a broad Estuary accent. After being shot with a toy gun, "You'll pay for this, Alexis, if it's the last thing you do!" he cries. "Let's hope it is, it's four minutes to midnight" smirks Julian, before the couple fall through the balcony.

Sticky Moments Questions will take us up to midnight: there's a bit of a wait while the crew bring on some sticks of sticky candyfloss. "What sticky thing can you suck for hours?" "A toffee apple". Yeah, the contestant gets to take a big bite from their candyfloss. "I have a mouthful of something hot and sticky every night before bed, what is it?" Ovaltine, obviously.

With the time approaching midnight, the contestants and Julian jump into the fountain with their umbrellas, as confetti drops. And that is how Channel 4 welcomed in the new decade, with Julian Clary showering the crowd with glitter as a choir sings "Auld lang syne". There was a game, they did keep score, and Hedley wins the tickets on Concorde for a lovely time away.

There's still five minutes before the NFL highlights show, so Julian has a bit of banter with the crowd, and pretends that he went feet-first into the Iranian embassy ten years earlier. It's a painful and prolonged link into his chosen outro, "Que sera, sera".

Baffling and chaotic when seen in the cold light of day, Sticky Moments does have a strong internal logic, Julian is able to keep the programme moving forward and knows when to bring an item to a conclusion.

Sticky Moments came back for a second series on Channel 4 in summer 1990 and Julian remained with the channel for the fourth-wall breaking Terry and Julian. The press turned on Julian after he joked about failed politician Norman Lamont at the 1993 comedy awards, and Julian didn't get another frontline role until 1996's All Rise with Julian Clary. Since then, he's steadily grown into the role of Camp Elder Statesman, excelling at Just a Minute, leaving lots of innuendo in pantomime, winning Celebrity Big Brother and taking on Taskmaster.

Channel 4 has continued to make game shows that were little more than vehicles for comedians: off the top of our head, we can think of Whittle for Tim Vine, and three programmes for Jimmy Carr: Distraction, 8 Out of 10 Cats, and I Literally Just Told You.

Next in this "Acceptable In The Nineties" series will be Janet Street Porter's finest moment, if by "finest" we mean "something lightweight for 7pm Tuesday evenings".

We must report the death of Kevin Keegan. The football legend had a minor claim to game show fame, he once competed on the BBC's Superstars show, and fell off his bike while cycling round a cinder athletics track. Sadly, the incident was barely captured by the cameras, and lived on more as an anecdote than footage; fortunately, Kevin was not hurt and went on to do rather well in the race.

Elsie Clark won this week's edition of Mastermind, having taken the Roman general Sulla ("an under-rated character in Roman history", said our winner afterwards). A score of 20 points came equally from specialist and general knowledge. Farrar Hornby put together the night's best general knowledge, but lost it with a so-so round on British and Irish cheeses. Adam Royston (Johannes Brahms) and Emily Ryan (Jonathan Creek) competed admirably.

A nailbiter on Only Connect, where Two Hearts won by a single point over Ad Astra. Quite the classic edition, too, with liquorice allsorts, Claudia Winkleman's costume, the world wide web, and ducks all popping up. The winning move came in Missing Vowels, where Two Hearts' captain Eden banged out four "phrases seen on screen in arcade games" in no time at all.

Once more, Manchester won a match on University Challenge. The defending champions eliminated Durham by 190-120, doing well early and late in the game, but beaten to the buzzers in the middle. Manchester's bonus rate was 18/30, and overall accuracy was 64%, both are somewhat above last series' averages. The side were feast or famine on their bonuses, four perfect sets and two complete stumpers. The team seems strong on history, but very weak on geography; we didn't see much science this week. In fact, we didn't see much of anything - just 82 questions in the entire show, fewer than any match last series.

In other points:

• "Many people would say, surely Katy Perry's boyfriend can't be a former Canadian prime minister."
• Bad news for the new defence minister: the "puppy paws" and "Superman" poses have already been banned by the UCI.

Tom Stoltman has joined the cast of BBC's Gladiators. Three times he's won the World's Strongest Man title, and we expect him to be immovable on Duel, a bit good on Everest, and an easy ten points on Unleash. Turns out that Tom has also been on The Traitors, as one of those masked guards from last year's series, the one where they poured BBC custard over each other. Anyway, Tom joins all the others in Sheffield, where series 4 of The Legend Show is recorded over the next couple of weeks.

Hurrah for *almost* everyone we met at Electromagnetic Field last weekend. Highlights included a presentation on the genius of Excel, how the Binary pen-and-paper puzzle is identical to the P=NP question, some interesting recipes, an embroidery kit, and being overtaken by a furry driving a C5. Special thanks to Sarah from the Overbrewed team, who sold EMF to this column in three minutes last autumn; and to Chris our companion-in-adventure. (And the *almost* everyone? Boo to our personal Stalker Wasp, who hung around every time we tried to take a bite of food.)

Next week, BBC Brain returns (Radio 4, Sun), as does The Hit List (BBC1, Sat). There's a new Celebrity Deal or No Deal (ITV, Sat), and we bid adieu to Love Island (VM2 and ITV2, Mon). End your week with a new burst of Catsdown (C4, Fri).

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