Weaver's Week 2025-03-16

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Who was he?

Contents 1 Henry Kelly 1.1 Game for a Laugh 1.2 Going for Gold 2 Christopher Hughes 3 In other news 3.1 Quizzy Mondays

Henry Kelly

Patrick Henry Kelly was born in Dublin on 17 April 1946, and raised in Athlone. Educated at Belvedere College in Dublin, where he never shut up, Henry went on to read economics and English at University College Dublin. Spurning a possible career as a teacher, he took a reporter's job at The Irish Times, with tours of the world's trouble spots – the Middle East, Lebanon during its civil war, Vietnam and Cambodia. And he went to Belfast, which was riven by its own tensions; his 1972 book How Stormont Fell is one of the most lucid guides to the early years of the Troubles.

Henry was a raconteur, always loved an amusing tale, perhaps cared less for its relationship to the truth. He was a reporter on Radio 4's strait-laced The World Tonight, later moving to the station's celebrity gossip and plugging chat show Midweek.

Game for a Laugh

Late in 1980, prankster and japester Jeremy Beadle had sold The People Show to LWT. He, and light ent head Alan Boyd, were looking for other cast members. They had Matthew Kelly, a comic actor from Holding the Fort; they had Sarah Kennedy with the charm of a school matron. But their first choice of host, Terry Wogan, turned them down, believing his prospects were better at the Beeb. Into that gap stepped another Irishman, young Henry Kelly. "Charming and funny" was Beadle's initial opinion of his co-star.

Game for a Laugh was unlike anything else on television at the time. The silly games from The Generation Game, mixed with the stunts and hidden camera work from Candid Camera, and a few other bits of unpredictable silliness. A typical episode might start with a game in which members of the public are invited to identify a celebrity simply by touching their head. Then there's a film of rock and roll star Joe Brown returning to his first job as a steam locomotive fireman, Sarah Kennedy being persuaded to touch a boa constrictor at the climax of an item about a man pulling snakes out of a box, a report on the annual raft race from Loch Tay to Aberfeldy. And the climax to the show – an elaborate practical joke appearing to wreck a car with a crane.

Game for a Laugh looked like nothing else on television. Fast cuts, stings of music, pace, energy. If something went wrong in one of the recordings, it would stay in the edit. Game for a Laugh had the absolute luxury of mounting each show twice, on successive evenings, so that the funnier take on each item could be used. They showed everything as it happened – no script, no autocue, not even the luxury of earpieces

What was Henry Kelly's role in this? He was the straight man, the host who would remain calm and unflappable, a brake on Beadle's excesses, a stoic pillar when Sarah Kennedy corpsed or Matthew Kelly went on one of his recurring jokes. He wasn't the most identifiable figure on Game for a Laugh – that was Beadle the prankster – but he was important to make the show work.

And why did Henry Kelly make this move away from serious journalism? He was a heavy drinker and had quite a large gambling habit; the modest income from a career in political journalism was never going to keep him in ale and bets. Was he envious of Terry Wogan's success? Perhaps he was; the two were certainly close friends until Wogan's death, and maybe Henry made an effort to replicate his mate's success on Blankety Blank.

Henry Kelly popped up elsewhere on ITV, joining the staff of TV-am a few months after it launched. To the surprise of the founders (but nobody else) a diet of highbrow interviews and starchy features hosted by David Frost and Michael Parkinson wasn't a ratings winner. Unlike their rivals at the BBC, TV-am broadcast over the weekend, and after Parky was "rested", Henry Kelly was paired with Toni Arthur from Play Away for the Saturday and Sunday morning programme. It proved to be a success, bringing in some viewers and some much-needed advertising revenue. He'd remain with TV-am until 1987, occasionally covering on the weekday programme alongside Anne Diamond and Roland Rat.

He wasn't contractually bound to ITV, and fronted the BBC's Food and Drink programme for a couple of years. He was also approached for a little low-budget programme to be shown on daytime BBC1 and primetime Superchannel.

Going for Gold

Yes, Going for Gold was the show to make Henry a star in his own right. Broadcast every lunchtime for weeks on end, the programme asked contestants from all across Europe to answer questions about geography, history, culture, and anything under the sun. Because the programme was shown across Europe, not all viewers had a great command of English, and Henry would use the same words again and again. "Select...", "Play or Pass?" "The big four zone", "Who am I..?" "First round proper".

Based on a flop American format, and originally commissioned to tie in with the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Going for Gold was renewed with a holiday to the Gold Coast in Australia, and then to the Seychelles, and other fabulous far-off destinations. Indeed, Going for Gold racked up seven series before Superchannel dropped the show in 1993, and enough continental competitors had been chosen to enable two further European series to be made – the overseas players were all sent VHS tapes of their programmes.

Going for Gold came off the air in 1996, but you can't keep a good format down, especially one owned by the Reg Grundy company. They remade it for Channel 5 under the cunningly different name One to Win (2000), and Going for Gold (2008) featured John Suchet's velvet voice reading the questions.

By then, John Suchet had followed Henry Kelly in another place – as the host of Classic FM's mid-morning programme. Henry was the big celebrity signing for the new classical station when it launched in 1992, and proved adept at telling little stories and making useful points during the short links between pieces of music. It won him National Broadcaster of the Year in 1994's radio awards.

Henry was taken off air after ten years, replaced by Simon Bates; the slot is currently occupied by Alexander Armstrong. Henry briefly returned to his news roots with a drivetime programme on LBC during 2003 and 2004; after being fired during one of the station's many management reshuffles, he was taken on by BBC Berkshire for a decade.

The late Eileen Battersby, who was the literary critic of The Irish Times, perhaps summed up Henry Kelly best. "He looks a bit like Fred Astaire and enjoys playing the fool, assisted by his mastery of pub humour and the smart alec quip. But make no mistake, this extremely thin, relentlessly smiling individual does want his listener to be sufficiently aware of his credentials."

A resident of Hampstead in north London, Henry loved strolling on the Heath and visiting his local pub the Bull and Bush. Henry was also a popular host of classical concerts on board cruise liners, and remained a regular contributor to the diary column in The Irish Times. Henry married Marjorie, his childhood sweetheart, with whom he had a daughter, the barrister Siobhán Kelly. He is survived by Siobhán; by his partner Karolyn Shindler, a historian and former BBC producer; and by their son Alexander. Henry Kelly was 78 years old.

Christopher Hughes

Chris was born in Enfield on 14 August 1947, and educated at Enfield grammar school. He became a train driver, and worked on the railways and the London Underground. He had one of those brains that can't help but remember facts, and he had the confidence to show it to the world. Took £100 on Hughie Green's The Sky's the Limit, and won at least one episode of Thames' pan-global experiment Top of the World.

He took part in the 1983 series of Mastermind. And he won it, taking steam locomotives in the first round and final (as was the custom), and the Flashman novels in the semi-final. He'd go on to win the International Mastermind tournament held that year, and as the show hasn't been renewed, he was the reigning International Mastermind champion for over four decades.

Chris's success on Mastermind came two series after another "everyman" contestant had won – Fred Housego, the taxi-driver. Fred Housego was a loquacious and vibrant personality, Chris Hughes always courteous and kind and not as immediately televisual. So, although Fred carved out a small media career for himself, Chris returned to the locomotives and railways.

Not that that stopped him from appearing on television quizzes. We haven't been able to find him in our records, but we're sure Chris must have done Fifteen-to-One at some point, almost everyone did. We do know that he made it on The Weakest Link, and got the question right. And the next one, and indeed every single question until the final three. Knowing full well that they'd lose to a better player, the other two voted Chris off. The host, a younger Anne Robinson, broke format.

"Chris, you have failed to answer any question incorrectly. You are the best contestant we have had on The Weakest Link. But you're too good for Seamus and Mari. With two votes, they have voted you off. Goodbye, Chris."

From there, Chris was recruited as part of the original line-up of Eggheads, the know-it-all boffins who would try and beat ordinary members of the public. Again, Chris wasn't the star of the show – Kevin Ashman had a reputation as the Egghead to fear, Daphne Fowler and Judith Keppell were the charming assassins, CJ de Mooi the flamboyant one. Chris was the workhorse, the player who would sneak under the radar, perhaps be given free passage to the final – and could quite often win it on his own.

Chris remained with Eggheads for over 15 years on BBC2, and stayed with the show until it was decommissioned by Channel 5 a couple of years ago. He remained active in other broadcast quizzes, capturing the BBC Brain of Britain title in 2005, and playing a good-natured away match against a team from Only Connect in 2011. And he was active in other non-broadcast quizzes, losing a charity match to a team containing the Mayor of Crewe.

Chris Hughes died in Crewe on 29 January this year; the news was made public a month later, and the funeral took place last Friday. He was 77 years old.

"He leaves a void in the quizzing world that can never be filled," said Shaun Wallace, a Chaser and friend. Eggheads host Jeremy Vine paid tribute to "the Locomotive" of the show. Vine said, "He was the central pillar of the team – a literal pillar as his bulk seemed to prop up the wonky studio table,"

In other news

Nominations are out for the RTS Television Awards, the second most prestigious awards (behind the Television BAFTAs). Game shows and people nominated are:

• Comedy Entertainment – Have I Got News for You, Sorry, I Didn't Know, Junior Taskmaster
• Entertainment – Saturday Night Takeaway, RuPaul's Drag Race, The Traitors
• Entertainment Performance – Ant and Dec (Takeaway), Claudia Winkleman (The Traitors), Steven Frayne (the non-game Miracles on KYTV)

The coveted RTS Daytime Programme of the Year is between Loose Women, Clive Myrie's Caribbean Adventure, and BBC Breakfast. Awards are given based on programmes shown in 2024, and the winners to be announced on 25 March.

From the Chateau in the Loire Back in the eighties, media sitcom Radio Active had a running joke about the top prize being a castle in the middle of France. Of course, until someone won it, all the station's presenters were allowed to spend their holidays out there, and Mike Flex liked it a lot – so much so that he'd make the contests impossible to win.

Life imitates comedy in the present day, as Channel 4's Chateau DIY prepares to offer a run-down dump as the top "prize" in a contest. Aspiring chateaubriands test their skills in design, renovation, business acumen, and stripping the markings off of forty-year-old MFI furniture. The first prize is the keys to the castle, please don't slam the door too hard or it'll fall off. Twenty episodes, each an hour long, makes us think this is going out at 6pm.

We were surprised to learn that they're still showing Who Wants to be a Millionaire, hosted by some bigoted old duffer. One of this week's questions caused much gnashing of teeth in the UKGS Pedantry Dept.

Q: Which of these tv shows has not changed channel since it was first broadcast in the UK?

Gladiators – Bake Off – Big Brother – Countdown

The correct answer, as we're sure you know, is "none of them". Gladiators jumped from ITV to KYTV in 2008, and then to the BBC last year. Bake Off notoriously followed the money to Channel 4 in 2016. Big Brother has been on Channel 4, BBC1, Channel 5, ITV, and ITV2. And Countdown has mostly been on Channel 4, but started life on Yorkshire TV, and a few episodes have gone out on More4.

No, we spent Sunday night watching Y Llais, the Welsh-language version of The Voice of Holland, which is far better given that everyone is really friendly, the singers are properly talented, and we can understand them far better than that guff on ITV.

Quizzy Mondays

A fascinating Mastermind. Gary Austin was in the lead after the specialist round, scoring a perfect 12 on the sitcom Friday Night Dinner. Kate Bleazard was second, she'd answered very quickly on Miss Marple and squeezed at least one extra question into her round. Eddie Crawford was in last place, having had a bit of a 'mare with Henry II. But Eddie had a superlative general knowledge set, scoring 15 marks, something Kate could not quite equal. Gary scored, and passed, and eventually crossed the line in the last moments. Gary Austin makes the next round.

Christ's Cambridge won this week's University Challenge. The final score was 205-155 over Warwick, but that only tells the half of it. At the second picture round, Christ's led by 200-65, having taken ten starters and basically frozen the midlanders out of it. Warwick came back with six starters, and almost pulled off the best recovery since Lazarus, but they'd left themselves just too much to do. The damage came from plenty of near misses – the wrong name for decorative art, talking themselves out of the scientist "Seaborg", and epithets in the Iliad.

Christ's had a bonus rate of 68%, their best in the series; Warwick were restricted to 40%. The distribution of the starters fell slightly in Warwick's favour, more on their strong subjects; the bonuses were slightly in Christ's favour, and overall there was no clear advantage from the questions.

This week, Channel 4 brings back Celebrity Bake Off (Sun), and there's a new run of Tempting Fortune (Sun and Mon). Stephen Fry's fan club will be pleased that Jeopardy! is back (ITV, weekdays). The final of Dancing with the Stars (RTÉ1, Sun).

Next Saturday's Gladiators (BBC1) goes up against the new series 99 to Beat (ITV), where ordinary people compete in simple games, and whoever finishes last is eliminated.

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