Guest Panellists: Matthew Kelly, Thora Hird, Mark Curry, Cleo Rocos, John Craven and Linda Lewis.
Since the last article on the Les Dawson run, then several more people involved with the show have left us. From the revival version, Paul O'Grady passed away in April 2023, and two of the original three producers have died: Stanley Appel (producer of the 8th-13th series) died in May 2023, while his predecessor Marcus Plantin died the following month.
For panellists, there was Bill Tidy in March 2023 (making 1.12 the third episode to date where none of the panellists are still with us), Rolf Harris in May, Vince Hill in July, Michael Parkinson in August and Jean Boht in September. Finally there was singer Linda Lewis, who makes her sole appearance on this edition and died on May 3rd 2023. As a series made nearer to the present day, then series thirteen has more panellists still with us than many of the others, but a third have still passed on.
Technically, this was the last episode of Blankety Blank, despite the fact that another five episodes were recorded afterwards. It aired last, with just 4.3 million viewers tuning in on 12th March 1990, seeing it rank 90th in the charts. Despite this, the BBC still had plans for Les, and although neither Blankety Blank or Opportunity Knocks were recommissioned, his agent was contacted about another quiz show format: Fast Friends.
Airing from March-June 1991, Les would later describe Fast Friends in No Tears For The Clown as: "[...] the greatest load of crap ever to be committed to film as far as I was concerned [...] I've dropped some big ones in my time, but agreeing to do that show was akin to heaving an elephant's testicles down a pit shaft. [...] The reviews were all ghastly, the ratings were so low the only people who watched it lived in a submarine, and frankly Fast Friends put a man-sized nail in my theatrical coffin."
Yet it's possible to suggest that the format for Fast Friends wasn't actually that bad, and that Les was just a bad fit for the part. Airing in a Saturday prime time slot, the first seven episodes averaged 44th place in the charts/7.06 million viewers. It was pitched as a "hip" show, with a title sequence full of happening young people in pastel shades draping themselves over motorbikes and playing trumpets... before being presented by an old school comedian who had just turned sixty when it aired. The show was quickly taken off the Saturday schedule and pushed onto Friday nights, where the remaining seven episodes fell to an average of 73rd place - a second series wasn't commissioned.
As "last" episodes go, this edition of Blankety Blank isn't bad, with plenty of fun among the panel. There are several signs that some things are edited out, as there are big laughs without any obvious reason, and Les, recording his second show of the night (after 13.16) has a voice that's starting to crackle with a cough. But while the show no longer screamed to be watched, it's not completely lifeless, either.
Les continued to make television appearances, and was still trying out new things. October 1991, for example, saw the broadcast of Nona, a play by an Argentinean playwright, with Les playing a 100-year-old grandmother. He also had another child in October 1992 (after three children from his first marriage), and ended his his second autobiography, the much-quoted "Tears", talking about his new-found happiness in his personal life, despite the high number of professional setbacks. Sadly, fate had a sad ending in store for Les, as in June 1993 he died of a heart attack, aged 62. His new child was just eight months old.
Guest Panellists: Gary Wilmot, Anne Gregg, Ted Robbins, Jill Gascoine, Roy Hudd and Barbara Shelley.
Les's last TV role was as a guest character in ITV's Demob, a pretty decent Griff Rhys Jones-Martin Clunes vehicle which failed to find much of an audience. Set after the Second World War, Les played Morton Stanley, an embittered variety hall entertainer who appeared in the third of six episodes. The character also has a minute's appearance in the last episode, but it seems clear that the significance of this second appearance was heavily removed in the edit due to Les dying during the production of the series.
The Daily Mirror (11th June 1993) reported: "Les had nearly finished work on the wartime drama series Demob. Now a question mark hangs over screening of the £4 million ITV show. Producer Adrian Bate said: "We had not finished filming his part and are looking into the implications. We are all too shocked to make any immediate decisions.""
Back to happier times with Blankety Blank, and the screenshot above shows Les doing his John Wayne impression, a favourite of his throughout this final run. There's also ruder gags, such as Roy Hudd holding up an answer of "U.F.O." and Les telling him he was going to say that when he came in in rehearsals. A sign of the times is that one of the questions is about Bros, who had had five Top 5 hits when this edition was recorded in March 1989 (including a No.1), and would have a sixth in July that year. By this point the trio had become just the two brothers of the band's name, and, whatever your views on the somewhat disposable pop of their career, it's always worth noting that their 2018 documentary After the Screaming Stops is something of an unintentional comedy classic.
Another point of trivia is that this edition was followed by an episode of Victoria Wood, a self-titled sitcom that referenced the show, with Wood telling someone, "I'll get you on Blankety Blank, they'll have anybody. Bring your own magic marker, you can host the next series, what'd you say?". Sadly, while Wood had talent, the sitcom was pretty awful stuff, with Wood's writing on automatic, and canned laughter throughout. (Though audiences did tune in enough to see it average 18th place in the charts, two of the episodes breaking the top ten. This also further highlights the humiliation of Blankety Blank's low ratings, with Victoria's show, following immediately afterwards, charting a full fifty places higher.)
Such trivia wasn't noticed by myself in all honesty, but instead pointed out to me by Rick McWhirter, friend of the site and a Blankety Blank contestant during the Lily Savage revival era. Those who have read previous articles in this series may recall that Rick had kindly lent me a letter he'd received from BB producer Stanley Appel, a letter I've picked the bones off like some kind of nerd vulture. One final piece of information from that letter comes with Appel's opinion of the show ending. Stanley stated simply: "B.B. had just run its time. It was a great programme to produce, Les was a great friend - I do miss him."
Guest Panellists: William Gaunt, Lynda Baron, Adrian Mills, Bonnie Langford, Mike Reid and Carmen Silvera.
Despite the deliberate choice of screenshot above, Blankety Blank was no longer a "rude" programme at this stage, as with series twelve. Out of well over a hundred questions throughout these editions, only a dozen could be regarded as vaguely rude, and even then it's largely in the minds of the audience and not actually anything on the card. This edition, for example, has one of the very few "could be a bit rude" entries with a dancer whose [BLANK] or [BLANKS] aren't what they used to be.
Instead, Blankety Blank becomes a pure missing word game, with many of the questions now so ambiguous, cryptic and often downright strange that Les takes to slating them with increasing regularity. This particular edition doesn't have anything too out of the ordinary, and consequently the contestants get decent-ish scores (spoiler - they score 14 out of a potential 36 matches) yet Les still gets in a "Remember the clue's in the question - if you can understand the question."
This final series had 17 uncredited writers working on the questions, with a Keith Burbage being the most-utilised, being behind 10 separate editions. This was followed by a Susan Kirk and Celia Pincus, who had 8 episodes each. This wouldn't, of course, mean that they had been specifically employed just for that edition, but that they had written a large number of questions that then got spread out over the whole series - indeed, some of them were budgeted against the previous run.
In an attempt to find out exactly why the innuendo was dropped, I contacted a few of the writers, getting a response from an Alan Whiting (who was one of the writers behind this run's 13.1, 13.2, 13.8, 13.9, 13.14 and 13.16.) Alan told me on Twitter that: "I was commissioned by Stan Appel, after he had produced the Keith Harris and Orville Christmas Show which was my very first TV gig, after writing radio comedy. I had to write 100 questions, which I remember was really tough. Don’t think there was a ban on innuendo."
Understandably memories can't be expected to be 100% reliable after so many years have passed, and so the Keith Harris Christmas Show which aired in 1984 was actually some time before Alan's work on Blankety Blank, as far as the records tell us. The original series stopped crediting the question writers from series nine onwards, though Alan first worked on the show with series twelve. In asking Alan for a few more details, he confirmed: "It was a hundred [questions] just for that series. Then they would choose which to use. The majority never got used. They had several writers making up questions so they [were] very over subscribed."
Although the innuendo strongly associated with Blankety Blank isn't essential, it does mean that without the quiz element having any innate fun, it's left to the panel and presenter to generate it. Les likes to lead the show strongly, often verbally knocking back the panel, so this then narrows the potential laughs even further, as you're generally relying on one person to deliver them.
As said right at the start of this article, then this thirteenth series isn't vintage Blankety Blank, and the narrowing of the humour is the main reason why. It's not that these episodes are bad, but the days when Les would spit over contestants, letch over women, and get verbally abusive to an extreme are behind us here. It's still pretty amusing, but elements have been taken away without anything to replace them, so you're just listening to Les making a few puns, and having generally more gentle laughs with the panel.
Said panel this week features the sole appearance of That's Life! presenter (and occasional actor) Adrian Mills, alongside the final outing for five regulars and semi-regulars: Mike Reid, Bonnie Langford, Lynda Baron, Carmen Silvera and William Gaunt. It's a good-natured edition featuring seven people enjoying each other's company, particularly Les and Mike Reid. The laughs they share don't always translate to screen, as they seem to be jokes among themselves, but it's a pleasant, diverting - albeit unremarkable - watch.
Guest Panellists: Barry Cryer, Pat Coombs, Ray Clemence, Lisa Maxwell, Derek Hatton and Aimi MacDonald.
An edition that features the sole appearances of former goalkeeper Ray Clemence, who had retired the previous year due to injuries, and politician Derek Hatton, who had been expelled from the Labour Party in 1986.
Blankety Blank wasn't an expressly political show, and Derek was only the second politician (or mainly known for being a politician) guest, following Cyril Smith. Derek's appearance is actually, unintentionally, an example of how times were changing on television and how Blankety Blank was looking increasingly old-hat in a more cynical, edgier world.
This edition was recorded in June 1989 and aired on 21st December that year, just ahead of a new decade. Fast forward three years and Derek was a guest trying - and largely failing - to get laughs on a particularly mean-spirited episode of Have I Got News For You. While the topical news quiz has its moments, it does have an unpleasant undertone for the majority of episodes, with a certain "bear pit" mentality towards any non-regular who appears on it, as Derek found out.
Derek doesn't really get a lot to do on Blankety Blank, but the tone is amiable and good-natured, even if he does give a double take to Les taking off his accent. Ray Clemence gets several remarks in his direction about how Les could tell "stories", suggesting they'd had a few nights of indiscretion together, while making their final appearances are Barry Cryer, Pat Coombs, Lisa Maxwell and Aimi MacDonald.
Aimi does her "ditzy" routine to decent effect in her last show, something almost abandoned by Lorraine Chase in hers, while Barry is a good, reliable panellist and perhaps got something of a mean write-up in the second series article. The big moment of the show comes when part of Barry's desk drops off, and if this isn't the most hilarious episode you'll ever see, it's certainly pleasant and will make you smile.
Guest Panellists: John Conteh, Jean Alexander, Andy Crane, Tessa Sanderson, Roy Barraclough and Louise Jameson.
Not many of the panellists from this run have autobiographies that talk about appearing on the show. The reasons are varied, though could include: I might already have quoted them in earlier runs; if they were new to the business then it wouldn't have been a significant part of their career as the show was ending; it simply wasn't something that had credibility anymore.
While the series thirteen episodes are still pretty funny, albeit unsurprising, the sad fact is that the world was leaving Blankety Blank behind. This edition was 67th in the charts with 6.7 million viewers, and it was no longer a thing to help a career. Just seven months later Punch magazine published a piece entitled "how to be a Has Been", which included among its suggestions "You appear on Blankety Blank, front-row centre", "You appear on Blankety-Blank, back-row right" and, most bluntly of all, "You appear on Blankety-Blank".
Jean Alexander (formerly Hilda Ogden from Coronation Street, and Auntie Wainwright from Last of the Summer Wine when this aired) was one of the few to write about her experience on the show from this period. With a brief yet positive claim in 1989's The Other Side of The Street, Jean wrote: "Also, by way of complete contrast, I have been a panellist on Blankety Blank with Les Dawson: that was a hilarious evening!" Perhaps one quote of Jean's that is significant to this edition is her opinion of fellow panellist Roy Barraclough, who was a former Coronation Street colleague as Alec Gilroy: "It was a pleasure to work with Roy; easy, genial, and so professional it was like being supported by a rotund life jacket!"
In the context of Blankety Blank, Barraclough was of course best known as one of Les's comedy partners, or, as Jean put it: "Ada and Cissie, two garrulous and grotesque 'ladies' of a certain age and less certain pasts, will never be forgotten."
Although some of the episodes throughout this thirteenth series do seem to be augmented by canned laughter, there is a pleasing moment where Les cracks jokes when introducing contestant Joanna Thorne, all of which die. It's that level of reality that the show has missed, the awkward moments that separated early Blankety Blank from the more heavily edited editions of later years.
There's also some genuine laughs with Les having fun with a contestant who was married five times. The panel don't get overly involved (not even a Cissie and Ada routine) but the affection they have for Les can be seen throughout. Surprisingly this was only Roy's third appearance on the show (he'd return for three editions with Lily Savage) and the fifth for Tessa Sanderson - both have such an obvious rapport with Les that it seems like more.
Finally, a piece of trivia is that this is almost the shortest episode of the original run, at 25'32m, just five seconds longer than Episode 10.21.