WHAT A CHARADE

Give Us a Clue, asks Chris Hallam

- Chris Hallam

Let's start with an easy one. It's a TV show. Four words. The second and third ones are very short. The third word is "A". That's right! It's Give Us a Clue. The much-loved series aired on ITV between 1979 and 1992. It was later revived briefly in 1997 and for a one-off special in 2011.

Television audiences were first introduced to Give Us a Clue on the second day of 1979 when it was screened at 7pm, right after that evening's episode of Crossroads.

With Britain still in the throes of the industrial chaos of the winter of discontent, ITV remained inaccessible to viewers in the Yorkshire Television region as it had throughout the festive season until the next day. Despite this, the new show fared well against the channel's two other TV rivals, which included another new programme, the science-themed The Great Egg Race on BBC Two, hosted by Brian Cant.

The format was simplicity itself, only requiring, as host Michael Aspel joked: "A sharp wit, a keen eye and a strong stomach... and that's just as a viewer!"

Although the word "charades" was never mentioned that's essentially all it was, a televised version of the old parlour game in which two teams divided along gender lines would compete against each other to successfully mime whichever book, stage play, TV programme or film is presented to them on a card for their teammates to identify.

The first series had been filmed between September and November 1978, with several editions recorded bac-to-back on a daily basis, a fact which explains why team captains Lionel Blair and Una Stubbs wore the same outfits for the first few episodes.