BBC's reality check as gambit fails to pay off

FOR YEARS broadcasting executives have insisted that televised chess just doesn't work. Now Chess Masters: The Endgame is here to prove it. BBC bigwigs had their heads turned by Netflix's hit chess-based mini-drama The Queen's Gambit. You can see the problem immediately. That had a screenplay, chess does not.

- Garry bushell

Netflix added glamour by casting Anna Taylor-Joy as the lead, the Beeb booked host Sue Perkins, who subtracts it.

To compensate for the lack of thrills, BBC2 inflicted daft nicknames on the contestants. Caitlin became "The Smiling Assassin", nice Claire from south Wales was "The Killer Queen" etc.

None of them were any match for The Unimpressed Viewer.

Games were speeded up, there were slo-mo replays and commentators desperately tried to inject some energy.

Nick "The Swashbuckler" had learnt chess in prison, but not well enough it seems. Facing Lula "The Chess Queen" his swash buckled entirely.

The result was a fudge, too trite to hook viewers who play chess well, too dull for those who don't.

Better options were to take chess seriously, as BBC2's The Master Game did for eight years, or turn it into a full-on entertainment show.

How about Celebrity Human Chess, played on a giant board (as seen on The Prisoner) with athletic pawns tackling physical challenges and brainy backrow players taking on mental ones? It would be like The Krypton Factor reborn.