The only quiz show fit for a Queen!

Unfailingly polite and with a very upper-crust host — no wonder Her Majesty loves TV’s Pointless, it’s ...

Even the Queen appears to agree it’s Tv’s nicest show. Pointless, the teatime quiz celebrating its 1,000th edition next week, is said to be Her Majesty’s favourite early evening viewing. Show host Alexander Armstrong revealed this week that a ‘Palace insider’ had told him our 90-year- old monarch enjoys watching Pointless before the BBC news At Six, and first stumbled upon it a few years ago.

She’s hardly alone. Despite some strong competition from ITv’s own quiz, The Chase, Pointless regularly attracts an audience of four million. So what is it that makes the eight-year-old show so popular?

It isn’t the prizes. There’s a daily sum of £1,000 to be won, which rolls over to the next day if nobody claims it. An extra £250 is added to the jackpot each time a player gives a perfect or ‘pointless’ answer, but that rarely happens more than twice in a game.

And it isn’t a show to excite traditional quiz fiends. In a 45-minute episode, there are just six questions, with multiple answers. By comparison, a half-hour edition of eggheads on BBC2 serves up at least 15 brainteasers, and often half-a-dozen more.

But what Pointless does deliver is a warm glow. It’s as friendly as a parish pub, as cheerful as a sing-song, as kindly as your favourite teacher. each show leaves you with the contented feeling that most people are lovely and the world isn’t really in such a bad way.

THAT’S largely due to the friendship between presenter Alexander ‘Xander’ Armstrong and his ‘ Pointless friend’, Richard Osman, the man with all the answers. The two, both 46, met at Cambridge, and have been pals for more than 25 years. Richard is a Tv producer who together on screen. But when the worked for years on Deal Or no pair ‘played’ the show in a dummyDeal. Xander is one half of comedy run, the BBC commissioners saw sketch duo Armstrong and Miller, at once their close bond and and rather posh. Just how posh insisted they had to co-present it. was revealed when he appeared on For Osman, it was his first foray the BBC’s Who Do You Think You in front of the camera. ‘I was deeply Are? and discovered he is uncomfortable,’ he said this week. descended from William the Con‘I remember the first one . . . just queror. Perhaps that’s why the hearing the murmur of the studio Queen is such a fan — she can audience — that chilled my blood.’ sense the family connection. The charm of Pointless also

When Armstrong and Osman derives from the repetition. Though devised the game’s format and both men can ad lib effortlessly, pitched it to Tv editors, they had they rely on scripted lines, too no intention of presenting it mundane to be catchphrases, that keep the show running smoothly. These are so soothing, its almost hypnotic. ‘Please take your places at the podium...’ ‘Is it right, and is it Pointless...’ ‘You’ve been really lovely contestants...’ ‘The coveted Pointless trophy...’

These phrases echo in every game. If Xander forgot to say one of them, we’d worry that the earth wasn’t turning on its right axis. If you’ve never seen it, the format may seem slightly confusing for the first couple of rounds.

Contestants are asked a question where there are many different possible answers, some of which will be obvious — but the challenge is to come up with the most obscure correct option, thus scoring as few points as possible.

Points are awarded for each possible answer, according to how many other people (in a test panel of 100) came up with the same answer. So, if 86 people on the panel gave the same answer as you, you’d score 86 points — not good.

To win, you must give an answer only a handful of people could dredge up. For example: name a British prime minister. If you said ‘Tony Blair’, that’s right, but not obscure; if you said ‘ Spencer Perceval’, you might score a perfect ‘Pointless’ answer.

Best of all, though, Xander and Richard refrain from humiliating the players, even when one, challenged to name a country whose name ends in two consonants (like england), said: ‘Paris.’

Then there was the couple who were sure Belgium is a landlocked country. After all, they’d been there . . . by ferry.

Were they made to feel small? not on Pointless. It’s simply too nice.