Big names play Games and commit rhyme of the century

Without wishing to sound too much like Alan Partridge or Richard Madeley, I’d like to tell you what I did last weekend.

Taking advantage of the unseasonably glorious weather, I spent a charming few hours with family and friends indulging in charcoal and chat in my garden while playing an online version of that popular music-based quiz show of yesteryear, Name That Tune. Now, I realise that might not be the most rock and roll anecdote you’ve ever heard – although, funnily enough, one of my neighbours did score especially heavily in the rock section.

However, I hope it will go some way to explaining just how much I loved

BBC2’s new quiz show Richard

Osman’s House Of Games last night. As the name suggests, it features Richard Osman in a pretend house, luxuriating in a comfy chair like a stretched Ronnie Corbett, with all manner of modern parlour games at his disposal. Four celebs are invited into Richard’s house for five nights to play the games. And then comes the good bit. Like all the best TV quizzes, ROHOG scores very highly on the play along ability chart – so the half hour fair flies by.

Each of the games featured last night would also pass my Celebrity Juice test. They would work equally well in a sober daytime setting as they would in a risky late-night slot. The best of these was Rhyme Time, which not only showed Len Goodman how to use rhyme in a game show format properly, but also threw up the best gag you’ll hear on telly this week when Al Murray coupled Bob Marley with Boutros Boutros-Ghali. “No UN Sanctions, No Cry. “That was his big hit.” Back of the net.