Can’t beat a good drama
LAST week we had a nail-biting drama played out across five nights on ITV. Or, as it turned out, four nights on ITV and one night on something that isn’t ITV even though it still is. This week, again running Monday to Friday at 9pm, hopefully this time all in the same place, we’re getting ITV drama of a slightly different kind. By which I mean BEATTHE CHASERS (9pm) with BradleyWalsh.
Yes, it’s back — the prime-time quiz show that’s better than the tea-time quiz show from which it’s a spin-off. (If ITV would like to use that quote in their publicity material, they can have it on me for free, I’m feeling generous.)
And yes, I really do believe drama isn’t too strong a word. While I doubt Beat The Chasers will ever deliver quite as startling a dénouement as, say, a Midsomer Murders episode (unless Bradley gets unexpectedly crushed by a giant cheese, the way Martine McCutcheon did on that show in 2013 ), the format is such that you’re always on the edge of your seat.
If you think I’m talking nonsense — and please feel free to say so, you wouldn’t be the first — then at least watch the first bit of tonight’s show, just to see how James from Staffordshire gets on, it’s worth the wait.
James is an implementation consultant, but surprisingly the first question he’s asked isn’t: “What the blinking heck is one of those?” Instead, he’s asked a question about a tiny old man in a funny hat.
Beyond that I shall say no more. The joy of Beat The Chasers is that it ticks so many boxes. Even more boxes than Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? ticks, and that show’s done all right for itself.
The questions are neither too demanding nor too dumb. The prize money can be modest or massive.
There’s a bit of gambling, a bit of greed, the potential to leave with a life-changing sum, or alternatively with diddly-squat — and, central to it all, that allimportant ticking clock.
Keep your wits about you as the seconds tick away and it could be a lucrative night. Get yourself in a tizzy and you’re stuffed.
Oh, and I almost forgot, there’s BradleyWalsh himself of course. I do love Bradley.
There’s hardly any show he’s been in that I haven’t enjoyed. He almost managed to make Doctor Woke semi-watchable... almost!
Elsewhere, we have the last in the current run of JAMIE: KEEP COOKING FAMILY FAVOURITES (C4, 7.30pm).
This is probably just as well. There’s a famous old saying among TV cooks, that when you’ve reached the point where you’re espousing the virtues of spiced cauliflower rice pie, it’s probably time that you took weeks off.