Guest Panellists: Brian Blessed OBE, AJ Odudu, Katherine Ryan, Rob Beckett, Ainsley Harriott and Gemma Collins.
The 2023 Christmas Special marks the further concealing of Blankety Blank in the schedules. The first two Bradley Walsh Christmas specials went out at prime time on Christmas Day... the third got pushed back to 8pm on Christmas Eve. This fourth festive edition saw the show pushed back to the 9pm watershed, and going out on the 23rd, so basically Christmas Eve Eve. Despite being effectively buried, it managed to make 36th place in the charts with 3 million viewers.
It's perhaps unfair that the show should get further marginalised in a year where it definitely improved, although perhaps not with this particular edition. It's okay, though it's a lot of noise, and Santa seems to have brought back the canned laughter machine in his presents. Brian Blessed and Ainsley Harriott put in their first appearances since the Lily Savage era, while AJ Odudu (What? No, nor me), Katherine Ryan and Gemma Collins make their debuts.
The match totals for the Christmas episodes are normally counted separately in these articles as they're traditionally easier than the regular editions. However, this being the current Blankety Blank and with the regular writers, they're not particularly easy. Or Christmassy, for that matter. Altogether the contestants get 10 out of 38 possible matches, though a lot plays down to stupid answers, including a contestant who didn't guess that a difficult zoo animal to put a hat on would be a giraffe.
Guest Panellists: Rylan Clark, Emma Willis, Desiree Burch, Sue Perkins, Anita Rani and Iain Stirling.
We start here with the run of genuinely decent Blankety Blank episodes. While four decent episodes out of ten may not sound a lot, for this version of the show it's an enormous improvement. This is a pretty amusing start to the series, with some genuine smiles. There's even an attempt at a Dawson-style gag when Bradley Walsh, as pictured, gets a 6'3 contestant to stand up next to him... not quite as strong a visual gag when Bradley is reportedly 5'9, but the contestant being on a raised stage helps it along.
Rylan Clark fits surprisingly well into the format, though Iain Stirling tries far too hard throughout. There is a certain "type" of comedian ("comedian") on the show, with many of them having identikit deliveries. Desiree Burch mentions Frankie Boyle giving her her first big break in TV, and it's the nearest that Frankie will ever likely come to the show.
As a piece of trivia, then this was just one of two episodes in this run (along with 21.7) that didn't feature the equal gender split, with four women and two men in both editions.
Guest Panellists: Ricky Wilson, Sam Quek, Kerry Godliman, Shane Richie, Remi Burgz and Owen Warner.
With old friend Shane Richie on the panel, Bradley is especially energised in this one, making an effort to bring some comedy into the show that extends beyond his usual go-to lines about prizes. Yet this more rowdy version of the show, combined with the newly-installed innuendo questions, causes something of a crash of the formula. Obliterating the "sounds a bit rude" nature of the programme, a contestant is allowed to get two points as her answer of "danglys" (sic) is awarded a match with both "nuts" and "testicles".
Before this episode aired, I'd done some research into the relationship between Richie and Bradley Walsh, with them both appearing as brothers in an off-beat, supernatural soap, Night and Day. However, as they then mention this in the episode itself, it means my pre-planned research went for nothing, leaving us just with the knowledge that Shane briefly mentioned Bradley in his 2003 autobiography Rags to Richie: the story so far, acknowledging that they were both in the running for a part in a stage production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. (It went to Michael Ball.)
As this write-up is, as a consequence, shorter than anticipated, it's perhaps an ideal time to pay respects to some panellists from the past who have left us since the last Blankety Blank article: Shirley Anne Field and Mo Moreland. Shirley's passing means that Episode 2.1 now has no panellists still with us.
Guest Panellists: Jason Watkins, Layton Williams, Anthea Turner, Rob Beckett, Nadia Jae and Jill Scott.
The highest-rated edition of the 2023 series, reaching tenth place in the charts with 4.16 million viewers. (Such ratings sound low by old-time standards, but only the top five this week broke five million.)
For the first five weeks of this run of Blankety Blank, it followed the popular Michael McIntyre quiz The Wheel. While The Wheel averaged an extra 1.21 million viewers and 16 places higher in the charts, it wasn't a disastrous arrangement for Blankety Blank, which generally had consistent viewing figures in its wake, averaging 3.77 million viewers and 22nd place in the charts.
There's still improvements needed for the Bradley Walsh version of Blankety Blank, but in 2023 it was nice to see it getting better. Bradley has suddenly realised that some of the onus to generate laughs is on him, and raises some smiles - there's also a nice old school moment where he cracks a joke that gets only the mildest of titters from the audience. Such a moment opens up the question of how the sound is processed, as laughter on the show does sound canned, but such a moment seems to suggest otherwise.
The questions again realise that there's supposed to be humour in them, and, for the majority, guessable answers - the 5 successful guesses out of 30 possible matches is more due to ineptitude of the contestants and the panel rather than any real difficulty with the questions - and some of the contestants add some fun, especially an elderly man in a pink suit who chastises Brad. There's also (too far) innuendo in this one, with Rob Beckett doing some dick gags and alluding to the c-word... though strangely mock-disciplining Leyton Williams for saying "hairy nuts".
An indication of how relatively near to air date this edition was shot comes with Bradley and Anthea Turner discussing their ages, with both being 63 - Bradley's birthday is on June 4th. (Bradley gets confused when Anthea tells him she's 10 days older than him, asking her if her birthday's the 14th of June.)
Guest Panellists: Kym Marsh, Jenny Ryan, Babatunde Aleshe, Chris McCausland, Michael Dapaah and Chizzy Akudolu.
An edition that brings back some of the chaos of the show's heyday, with a somewhat unruly panel, and, more significantly, three passive-aggressive contestants. Just battling off stroppy members of the public ("John, you go first this time, A or B?" "Why?") elevates this edition to a higher level than any previous edition of this revival series.
There does come a point where the contestants - Poppy particularly - veer towards being outright obnoxious, which does make you question why they weren't taught manners, but does all make for better telly. The panel are also fairly "live", with the quieter personalities knowing to keep in the background, while semi-regular Chris McCausland is reliable as always, and Michael Dapaah (AKA Big Shaq) adding some drive to proceedings.
Bradley's now much more comfortable in the role, and while routines about asking the contestants what prizes they want to win is generally a dead end, their total ennui, coupled with the actual prizes this week - a trainspotting kit and a lawnmower - do make this a little more amusing. There's also more of the ruder questions, which perhaps betrays the influence of Kevin Eldon on the writing team. The contestants match just 9 out of 45 answers, but this is largely due to their own ineptitude, rather than anything intrinsically difficult with the questions.
As a point of trivia, then this was initially listed on the BBC site with the contestants from episode 6 - it's not known if this was a last minute change of episode order, or just a mistake.