Worst to Best
Blankety Blank
Series Ten

Blankety Blank returned in September 1986 with a tenth series that included some "special" episodes. For the first time, panels were based exclusively around other TV shows, including Hi-de-Hi! and the new BBC flagship show, EastEnders. Yet it was also a time of immense personal tragedy for the host, Les Dawson.


by
THE ANORAK
OCTOBER
2022


The 22 episodes ran until April 1987, occuring during a turbulent period in Les's life. Please join me as we look behind the scenes and rate the series from worst to best...

22 Episode Sixteen

Guest Panellists (in panel order): Ian Krankie, Thora Hird, Tom Pepper, Sneh Gupta, Peter Goodwright and Jeanette Krankie.

After showing signs of getting stale during the ninth series, Blankety Blank regains a lot of the spark in this tenth run. Generally, past this first page of rankings, the shows range from pretty good to great.
      This lowest-ranked offering isn't terrible, though does suffer heavily from a lifeless audience who give little response to what's happening. Other episodes can, as we'll see, produce a kind of perverse enjoyment with such uncomfortable situations, but for this one it's just a little forgettable. Les gets a few laughs by joking about the prizes, and there's a big reaction to a question about a cat licking his [blanks], but generally this is a flat edition, with some moments patched up with canned laughter.
      Sneh Gupta makes her only appearance on the show, an actress and Sale of the Century hostess who appeared in things like Octopussy, Kelly Monteith and Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks. Also on the panel is Tom Pepper, a proficient if unremarkable Liverpool stand-up who was doing serviceable albeit generic gags on shows like 3-2-1. Yet perhaps the oddest element is that the Krankies come back for the first time since the third series... but as themselves.
      They were still doing the act at this time, with a new series of The Krankies Elektronik Komik to air later in the year, but for some reason it's not Jimmy on the panel but Janette - as it would be for their two return appearances in later Les series. (You might also note that here, and in Series 11, she's credited as "Jeanette", and only got listed as Janette in Series 13.) Although other performers came on as themselves and not the parts they played, it's a curious decision that makes little sense, given that, while Janette had appeared as herself on a couple of chat shows, she was still very much an "unknown" sans schoolboy cap.

21 Episode Two

Guest Panellists: Freddie Trueman, Eve Ferret, Bruno Brookes, Sara Hollamby, Derek Jameson and Nerys Hughes.

An edition full of new faces, as semi-regular Nerys Hughes and a returning Freddie Trueman are joined by four celebrities fresh to the show. Bruno Brookes is another of the fairly bland Radio 1 DJs that were being brought onto the show at this time, but would only return once more. For some reason the expected seating arrangement is inverted here, with Bruno taking the top right seat in deference to Freddie at top left.
      Then there's the sole appearances of actress Eve Ferret and presenter Sara Hollamby. It's not clear if Eve writes all the information on her own personal website, but there Blankety Blank is described as: "A simple parlour game. Answer a question and hope as many of the celebrity panel of six as possible gave the same answer. It cheered you up after a day at work, and relaxed you after that evening meal."
      Yet perhaps the guest to focus on here is Derek Jameson. He had a rough-sounding voice that had a certain "gargling with coal" flavour when he spoke, but newspaper fixations with saying his speech was incomprehensible seemed to be based around an innate snobbery due to Jameson's thick Cockney accent. It could also have been a result of scores being settled, as Jameson came up through Fleet Street and had edited multiple tabloids. This said, even Les describes his voice as "like a gastric frog on a hot plate".
      At this stage in his career Jameson was a BBC host of a programme that looked at how other countries reported on the UK, called Do They Mean Us?. The last edition had aired eight months before this episode was broadcast, but to a certain generation Jamesons's catchphrase from the show: "Do they mean us? They surely do!" is the most-remembered thing about him. (Speculation in the series six article that Larry Grayson may have recorded the worst record by a panellist is blown out of the water by Jameson's unlistenable "Do They Mean Us?", which was even released in 12 inch format for some inexplicable reason.)
      Derek was actually a big fan of Les Dawson, writing about him in the second volume of his life story, 1990's Last of the Hot Metal Men: From Fleet Street to Showbiz: "My favourite performer is Les Dawson because he has never allowed his success as a writer, comedian and entertainer to go to his head. He is as down-to-earth as the bloke standing next to you in the chip shop. Appearing as one of his long-suffering panellists on Blankety Blank, I loved the way he mingled with the contestants and their families before the show. Shirtsleeves rolled up, laughing like a drain, putting them at their ease. It might not sound much, but I can tell you that many of the big name celebrities in our business are hardly seen when the camera isn’t on them. They scuttle in and out of their exclusive dressing rooms like scared rabbits."
      Despite the new faces, this is perhaps one of the more forgettable episodes of the show - a passable yet unmemorable half hour, again patched up with canned laughter and some slightly jarring edit cuts. Or, as Eve Ferret would have it, it simply "cheered you up after a day at work, and relaxed you after that evening meal".

20 Episode Four

Guest Panellists: DLT, Janet Brown, David Wilkie, Sabina Franklyn, Alfred Marks and Diana Moran.

The final episode of not one, but three long-term panellists: Janet Brown, Sabina Franklyn and Alfred Marks. Marks, making his eighth appearance, was more of an early Wogan guest who came back for a couple of Dawson cameos; Franklyn was a consistent regular, but only since the sixth series, and also did eight episodes.
      Yet the most significant panellist to not return is Janet Brown, an impressionist who had appeared in every single series up to this point. In the autobiography quest that Blankety Blank has taken us on, one sad memory that was previously overlooked was that Janet first took part shortly after the death of her husband, actor Peter Butterworth.
      In 1986's Prime Mimicker, Janet recounted: "Appearing again on television in Blankety Blank, my first show after Pete's death, was difficult. Walking across the studio floor in front of a studio audience and making my way to my place on the panel took great effort. Trying to fit in with the mood of the show, to laugh and joke was even more difficult. I felt the strain terribly - but this thing of being forced to get on with things came to the top and I managed. It was only later, when I talked with Alan Boyd (then the programme's producer) that I found once again everyone involved had wanted to help; they'd all been aware of how hard it would be for me, so soon."
      Sadly, a key figure from the programme leaves in a bit of a flat instalment. With Janet's presence Les does seem to amp up the impressions, however, including the tenth rendition of his Charles Laughton from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It wouldn't be the last time Les would do the impression - in fact, he'd do it again just the following week - but it was actually Terry Wogan who was the first to do it, way back in the final episode of the first series.

19 Episode Seventeen

Guest Panellists: Duncan Norvelle, Carmen Silvera, Alan Titchmarsh, Linda Hayden, Keith Chegwin and Sally Brampton.

Possibly the most uncomfortable Blankety Blank episode since Paul Daniels left the show, there's an almost morbid fascination with this one that could have made it top this ranking. Recorded on June 1st 1986, the same day as Episode 10.16, the muted audience remain lifeless through this second show of the night, causing Les's jokes to continually wither and die. As he verbally references how few laughs he's getting, there's not even a chance to rescue it in the edit with some of the much-discussed canned laughter.
      It's refreshing, in that the show is completely left out to dry, while other light entertainment shows of the era were salvaged in post-production. The biggest laughs and audience response during the show come when a Supermatch Game begins with "French", the studio urging Duncan Norvelle to say what's really on his mind... French letter, a not-very-often-used-anymore term for a condom.
      Les starts the show with a routine where he says he's received complaints from the viewers about the quality of recent panels, so has "hand picked" the celebrities for this episode. It seems something of a misfiring dig at the relative obscurity of all involved, as, Norvelle aside, the rest of the panel are all brand new to the series, four of them never coming back.
      Carmen Silvera makes her first appearance and would become a semi-regular, but this is the only time we see actress Linda Hayden, or Sally Brampton, the editor of a fashion magazine. There's also Alan Titchmarsh, who, in 2022, has been on TV constantly for over 30 years... but, while here he was a gardening presenter for Breakfast Time and the host of Open Air, this is very much at the start of his career.
      Keith Chegwin, an actor-turned-children's presenter/household name is the most likely person to instil some sense of energy in the whole thing, but he quickly realises how badly the show is going and asks Les: "Is it always as exciting as this?" A later joke from Keith that it's his first and last time is met with Les's agreement.
      The panel being far less "name heavy" than many other editions isn't really the main fault of the programme, as it's not them but Les who isn't connecting with the almost mute audience. What's nice to see is when someone is a "friend of the show", and takes responsibility for the way it's going. With this spirit, Duncan Norvelle tells a couple of gags, and even gives a male contestant a box of chocolates, still half-heartedly working his "gay" routine, even after Les talks about him being in the tabloids for getting a woman pregnant.
      But it's humour shot down by Les, who does his customary put downs even after the panel have got a laugh, rather than embracing it. The end of the show sees him "belly bouncing" with a portly contestant, seemingly in desperation to get a laugh in. Les is generally on good form in the tenth series, and, while this edition is far, far from him at his best, it just seems that the studio audience weren't suitably warmed up or responsive.
      Les notes the situation throughout, and does an amusing rant that not only jokes about it, but contains more than an element of truth: "What's the point in trying to introduce a lu - a note of levity in otherwise boring programme? I'm getting no help from you, I'm getting no help from the producer... the panel's a waste o' time. The contestants look as though they've just been dug up. What'd you expect from me, eh? I'm a person."

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