Worst to Best
Blankety Blank
Series Seven

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7 Episode Two

Guest Panellists: Roy Hudd, Karen Kay, Matthew Kelly, Janet Ellis, Ted Rogers and Lizzie Webb.

Les is more confident in his own self in this edition, his fourth to be recorded, even if he's still not completely assured of the rules and the run of the game. One significant element of Les's humour is his verbose, rambling monologues which rely on turns of phrase and playing with the English language for their humour.
      While such jokes being heavily laboured is a key part of the humour, it doesn't necessarily work in a quiz show situation, with contestants in this edition frequently talking over his lines, or interrupting his gags, much to the delight of the panel. It's notable that Les appeared to learn from this, placing the monologues more towards his opening introduction, and integrating snappier, shorter puns into his material with the contestants.
      The episode marks the first appearances of Matthew Kelly and Lizzie Webb on the panel, though both only returned once each. More significant is Les Dawson joking with Janet Ellis after a wrong answer that "We will call you if we're stuck." Janet Ellis never returned to the show, which is surely just an unfortunate coincidence.
      Discussion of rehearsals and stand ins comes to the fore here when Karen Kay gets an answer wrong and says she also got it wrong in rehearsals. Quite what took place behind the scenes of Blankety Blank, and whether the "stand ins" were stand ins for the contestants or the panellists (or both?) is still one of those mysteries yet to be fully solved...

6 Christmas Special

Guest Panellists: Russell Harty, Ruth Madoc, Derek Nimmo, Suzanne Danielle, Ken Dodd and Lorraine Chase.

In terms of ratings, then for this period newpapers were publishing just the top ten per channel. While the majority of the episodes in this run made the BBC1 Top Ten, there were two episodes (7.8 and 7.10) that didn't make it, meaning an overall average is impossible. Of the remainder from 7.1-7.13, the average rating was 10.32 million, and 7th place on the BBC-only chart. This Christmas Special, with 15.35 million viewers, was the only episode of the run to break the national top ten, coming in at tenth place.
      It's a pleasant, pretty amusing edition with some fun, though as an episode with a higher than average number of panel interruptions, it does illustrate an area where Les isn't as proficient as Terry. As mentioned in the previous entry, Les's comedic style is based around lengthy set ups and excess verbiage (Russell Harty describes it as "big words, and two where one will do"), and so it's not as conducive towards interruptions as Wogan's quicker, quip-based offerings.
      This is not, of course, to suggest that Terry was funnier, just that some styles will naturally mesh better together than others. Although Lorraine Chase was very complimentary about Les's time on the show, she simply doesn't work as well with Les as she did with Terry, and, whether by coincidence or not, didn't appear again until series eleven. It's really the difference between a half witty/half meandering panellist interrupting a fairly amusing television presenter, or interrupting a professional comedian trying to set up a gag.
      One amusing aspect of the show is Les's ability to abuse the contestants, seen here when a tiebreaker is held between two men who - spoiler - both scored zero points in their respective Supermatch Games. "This promises to be a very exciting part of the game," explains Les, "One's an idiot, the other one's drunk." Yet in among the laughs, Les ends with a rare serious moment, hoping that "next year is a bit better than this year."
     A last point of trivia is that the guest panellists are divided into women ("Christmas Crackers") and men ("Christmas Cards"), with both groups presented in alphabetical order. This is unique to this seventh series, as the rest of the episodes from the run have the credits in the order they appear on the panel - something which did, if nothing else, made writing up this article a little easier.

5 Episode Twelve

Guest Panellists: Stan Boardman, Beryl Reid, Henry Kelly, Bonnie Langford, Cyril Smith MBE and Bertice Reading.

This particular edition of Blankety Blank was reviewed two days after it aired on a December 9th edition of Did You See..?, with Ludovic Kennedy joined by Kenneth Williams, composer Carl Davis and crime fiction writer Jessica Mann. Although none of the guests were enthusiastic about the basic concept of Blankety Blank itself - Williams derided the intelligence of the panellists, and claimed that there's "not much chance of anything witty or amusing happening" - they were complimentary about Les himself.
     Williams, a fan of Les, watched it every week, purely because of Les's derision of the show, while Mann described him as "very appealing and very endearing". Carl Davis considered whether going on the show would be good for PR purposes, but perhaps the most significant comment was Kenneth's belief of Wogan that a "disc jockey" wasn't the right host for the format, and that a terrible show like Blankety Blank needed a comedian to elevate it.
     There are several new faces on the panel, with Stan Boardman and Henry Kelly, plus Bertice Reading, an American singer/actress who had worked with Les in some episodes of that year's The Les Dawson Show. While a six-foot Terry Wogan mock-bullying the female panellists was always a little uncomfortable, the much shorter Les Dawson doing the same thing is a different proposition, and his scared reactions to the anger of matriarchal figures always works well. (Most records state Dawson as being 5'4, though in his autobiography he declares it to be 5'6-and-a-half.)
      As mentioned elsewhere, Les had a vast number of different panellists spread out over his 124 episodes, with no less than 340 separate guests. 178 of them made just a single appearance, including two panellists here: Beryl Reid and Cyril Smith. Reid, of course, was a Wogan regular, and the second most occurring panellist, but this is the sole time she appeared with Les.
      Far, far more problematical is the presence of Cyril Smith. As a child growing up in the era, Smith was a much-loved figure, a Liberal politician who would best be described as, to put it bluntly, "a jolly fat man". Hugely overweight, Smith was a likeable presence whenever he was on TV, and a figure of fun who welcomed the attention. Sadly, the time following his death has revealed a world of abuse allegations and supposed cover ups that go so far high up it's nerve-wracking to even write about them.
      With this in mind, it's obviously an episode that is retroactively hard to watch, particularly when Les refers to Cyril as a "nice man" and "old friend". However, Les does, of course, get in lots of his customary gags at Smith's expense, including claims that they had to knock a wall down to get him in the studio. Politics rarely informs Les's work, but he also gets in a nice line explaining to Smith that a Liberal is "a Conservative with a council house."
      Fortunately Smith is largely muted throughout and just a recipient of Les's gags about his weight, so it's actually easier than expected to focus on the fun elsewhere, including the final appearance of Beryl Reid. Perhaps one thing that would have been worth mentioning way back in series one's write-up is that Beryl had her own annual TV specials airing around the same time. Her first appearance in Episode 1.3 came four days before her second special (which was postponed from December 1978) and her third and final special aired just five days after she appeared in Episode 2.15. The reason for not mentioning them before is that I simply didn't have access to them, but I've since sought them out, and with Beryl performing scripts by Noel Coward and Harold Pinter, they're quite a bit more sophisticated than you may have expected.
     Beryl sadly has a broken arm on this edition, writing her answers left-handed, and clearly not sharing the same chemistry with Les that she did with Terry. Les's acerbic one liners (at point warning her she'll have another broken arm if she doesn't get an answer right) fit badly with her more rambling, "dotty auntie" persona, and her interruptions aren't really needed when a professional stand up is now hosting the show. It's somewhat an anti-climatic swansong from one of Blankety Blank's most prominent guests.
      As for how Beryl Reid broke her arm, then it's not entirely clear, though her oft-quoted 1984 autobiography So Much Love, sadly written before this appearance, does reveal that she was incredibly accident prone throughout her career. In the book she details many various fractures, including Malcolm McDowell (who she adored) accidentally breaking her foot and hand on two separate occasions; tripping over a phone cord and breaking her arm in three places; and falling over while looking for a cat and breaking all her ribs. So, while the exact cause of this particular break is lost to time, it seems just one in a long line of various injuries, all of which makes you grateful that the little man under her desk had a gentle touch.

4 Episode Nine

Guest Panellists: Paul Shane, Sandra Dickinson, Stu Francis, Cherry Gillespie, Frank Thornton and Lizzie Webb.

A lot of Blankety Blank shows of this run can feel like "Les's mates", as he openly admits to being on good terms with most of the panel. Fortunately, he has a lot of them, and due to the nature of the way guests were spread out, none of Les's regulars felt like overkill, except for perhaps Wendy Richard and Aimi MacDonald getting three turns each in series eleven. Richard and MacDonald were the most occurring panellists during this time, making 11 and 10 appearances respectively in the Dawson era of the show. The next most prominent panellists, with their number of appearances relating to Les Dawson's run only, were as follows: Joe Brown and Duncan Norvelle (nine times each), followed by Barry Cryer, Clare Rayner and Bertice Reading, all with eight appearances.
      This edition sees another couple of "mates", with Stu Francis and Frank Thornton taking a guest turn. Les had worked with Francis in theatre in 1978, noting in A Clown Too Many that during the run: "[...] Stu and I moved into my large flat and shared expenses. His companionship saved my sanity, and we managed to manufacture our own fun." Stu's big moment is sadly lost in the edit; one of his answers gets a big laugh from the studio audience, though is hidden beneath reaction shots and Les standing in front of him: whatever made the audience laugh was clearly not fit for broadcast.
      Yet perhaps the biggest talking point is Les's hilarious dislike of a contestant, Jimmy Valentine, who brings on a puppet ferret to almost no response from the studio audience. "Now I'll tell you what 'appened," says Les, eviscerating the poor guy, "before the show they said 'he's got a ferret'. And they said 'he'll steal the show with it'..... wrong." Later Les jokes that Jimmy is "an absolutely lousy contestant" who has brought "misery" to the programme.
      The second of the two episodes recorded that evening (after 7.8), Les is clearly tiring as he fluffs several lines and gets the rules wrong, and also has a cough (possibly a smoker's) but it's a fun instalment. It was repeated again the following year on April 2nd to fill a gap after series eight was cut short... but that's another story...

3 Episode Eleven

Guest Panellists: Roy Kinnear, Janet Brown, Jon Pertwee, Linda Nolan, Duncan Norvelle and Joanna Monro.

Blankety Blank is an odd vehicle in that sometimes it can showcase the best of an act, sometimes there's no opportunity. As previously discussed, Johnny More and Karen Kay have more talent than their appearances on the quiz let them display, but it's a good showcase for Duncan Norvelle. It's perhaps forgotten today just how big Duncan Norvelle was at the time, seemingly on every light entertainment show going in the 1980s. He began his career by entering amateur talent competitions and stringing together a few impressions, before stumbling on to a vein of humour that was basically a stereotyped homosexual turned up to 11.
      With the catchphrase "chase me!", he could be argued to have followed in the same line as other panellists John Inman and Larry Grayson, to name just two, the only difference being with Duncan it was all an act. In an interview on YouTube back in 2015 Duncan did address the issue by saying "'Is he or isn't he?' To be honest with you, I don't even know." Such a remark would suggest that Norvelle is possibly bi, as he's married with kids, but the crucial point is, his "gay" persona is just that... a fabricated character.
      So, is this a problem today? Maybe, maybe not. Certainly the character portrayed by Norvelle is essentially harmless, as he's the chasee not the chaser, but this dodgy undercurrent is still there, with Ted Rogers introducing him on an edition of 3-2-1 by telling viewers "Nobody's safe when he's around." It was a fabrication that left a long shadow at the time... those with long memories may recall the 1987 series of Opportunity Knocks, where Brodie Fry, while having his own, completely separate act, appeared to emulate Norvelle's distinctive laugh.
      There's a case to be had that in today's world, the same kind of thing exists, with Alan Carr essentially an X-rated version of Norvelle. The only difference is, Norvelle was a straight man (or to all intents and purposes a straight man) putting on an act. While camp behaviour was a way for homosexuality to express itself in comedy in the immediate aftermath of its decriminalisation in 1967, by Duncan's era he was facing the second decade of its legality. Portraying a homosexual as a caricatured effeminate, it's essentially a minstrel show for sexuality. Yet despite all this, Norvelle shows a surprisingly good chemistry with Les, and often, a quick wit. He fits so well into the world of Blankety Blank that he became a Les regular.
      Lastly, in an episode with much to discuss, then there's Jon Pertwee on the panel, who fits in far better as a supporting panellist than he did trying to be the star way back in series one. But perhaps the real standout moment in this edition is the odd chemistry of the first two contestants, the bubble-permed Sheena McGregor and the quiffed-and-suited Mark Andrews. At the end of their game, McGregor quips that "I'm taking 'im 'ome", only for Les to ask "You really fancy him, don't you?", with just a sheepish laugh as a reply. As Les has just done his traditional "kissing the female contestants" bit, Mark asks if he can do the same, and gives her a full snog.

2 Episode Eight

Guest Panellists: Roy Kinnear, Pat Coombs, John Junkin, Kirsten Cooke, Keith Barron and Wendy Richard.

One significant change to the set up of Blankety Blank during the Dawson era is that the idea of tossing a coin to decide which contestant goes first is discarded in favour of the "ladies always go first" rule. For those who have been watching along, then the two Terry Wogan pilots alternated between both sexes, whereas the first proper Wogan episode to be recorded, 1.9, was the first to introduce the "ladies first" rule, before being discarded in all other Wogan episodes in favour of a coin toss.
      It's possible that after seeing Terry trying, and failing, to get a laugh out of the coin toss routine for six years, Les or a member of the team decided to scrap it, but for those watching in 2022 it can, perhaps, make the shows feel a little more dated than the Wogan era in this respect. Les insists that there's "no male chauvinism in this", despite the fact that it could be construed as a little sexist. But this is 38-year-old telly, so expecting it to match up to the societal mores of the 21st century is missing the point.... as is expecting a man who was born in 1931 to possess what is regarded as the mindset of a world that's taking place almost three decades after he died.
      So, yes, the Les Dawson Blankety Blanks do feature such remarks as Faith Brown hearing "You don't get many of them to the pound", and the female contestants are slobbered over, but there's, as bizarre as it sounds, almost a non-predatory tone to events, the work of man who ensures that, even if his flirting did have a chance, he crushes all hope by gurning and spitting all over the objects of his desire. Les himself described his view in A Clown Too Many that: "Let's make one thing clear. I adore the ladies and whoever christened them the weaker sex must have been an insane recluse."
      Les is on fine form in this one, slating the show and the prizes, though does sometimes seem stuck for words when some of the panellists answer back. It gives the impression that Les is more of a compendium of quips, rather than an ad-lib man, which is no bad thing. By the end of the show he gives up trying to wittily deconstruct the panel and instead just abuses them, saying to a contestant about Roy Kinnear the inexplicably hilarious line of "Fatty let you down."
      Speaking of Roy Kinnear, there's a rare moment of cruelty at the end of this one, where a traditional reaction in the Head To Head game - the panellist looks dejected as they pretend they haven't got the right answer, before revealing they have - is reversed. Roy gets up the contestant's hopes for a reasonable prize of a hi-fi before revealing that he had, in fact, got it wrong.

1 Episode Thirteen

Guest Panellists: Jeff Stevenson, Faith Brown, Lonnie Donegan, Ruth Madoc, Orville the Duck, Keith Harris and Lynsey De Paul.

The biggest unsolved mystery of series seven is where exactly this episode would have gone. Broadcast on the 14th December, it was a late replacement for another episode which was postponed and pushed back to series eight (of which more next time), yet the broadcast records weren't updated accordingly, instead still showing the originally planned episode.
     By a process of elimination we can work out that this edition would have actually been recorded second in the run, way back on the 21st May. Would it have originally been planned for one of the two slots (12th October/2nd November) when the show was taken off the air for a week to make way for football? And why was it held back after being recorded so early? We may never know.
     Another mystery is Les's boxing career. He mentions amateur bouts in his autobiography, but then refers to having been a low-level pro boxer with no reference point between the two. When did he turn pro? How many pro bouts did he have? It gets missed out in an otherwise detailed book, but does give us this piece of information: "During the end of my short career as a pro boxer, an opponent smashed my jaw with a juddering right cross, and ever since, I have been able to pull my chin over my nose with superlative ease and create the most grotesque grimace; having a face like that is of immeasurable value."
     It's something that comes to the fore in this edition, with Les showcasing "the punctured head". It's a pretty fun edition overall, from the golf-playing contestant who claims he spends most of his time "in the stream, picking my balls up" (that's how you do a golf gag on Blankety Blank, Jimmy) to a question about 50-year-old films that sees Les say "probably the BBC've just bought them."
      Although there are signs that Les is a little tired, being the second show of the night ("Is it a week that's flown already?" he jokes to the audience at the start) and he's sometimes a step or two behind with the rules of the game, it all adds to the fun. Les's almost complete indifference to Orville the Duck makes him an amusing edition, and on a panel that all have a good rapport with Les, it's a surprise that this was Lonnie Donegan's sole appearance. Lonnie really throws himself into the fun, even going cross-eyed at one point to join in with the high spirits. A fun show in a fun series.

 

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