How I See It

Anne Robinson’s got it right – quiz show contestants are not to be sneered at

The launch of Anne Robinson as the new host of Countdown, a mere fortnight before the return of Only Connect (which began its new series on

BBC Two this week), makes for an interesting comparison. I wonder why nobody’s made it?

Perhaps they’re being gallant because Anne Robinson looks so much better than I do. Honestly it’s ridiculous. Fine-boned, neatly coiffed, delicate like a bird in her giant host’s chair; the best I can claim is that at least my lockdown weight is more zeitgeisty.

On matters of topical zeitgeist, the new Countdown was a bit unlucky. Impressionist Rory Bremner was in Dictionary Corner for the launch episode, where he and Anne discussed “how hard it is to do Matt Hancock”. Soon after, it turned out to have been easier than they thought.

I hadn’t seen Countdown for a long time. I know it’s 15 years because I last watched it with my father when he was ill. Des Lynam was hosting, or it might have been Des O’Connor, and I mean no insult to any of the great hosts by forgetting which. The format is the star of Countdown.

It is one of the all-time great formats. Thirty-nine years after it began, the lure of those vowels, consonants and numbers is as strong as ever. It’s impossible to see it without playing along. That’s why it became such a hit in the hands of Richard Whiteley, whom we all loved but who genuinely seemed not to realise that he was on television.

When Only Connect launched, a mere 13 years ago, I was advised by the producers and the channel (which was, at the time, beloved BBC Four) to “model yourself on Anne Robinson”. Weakest

Link was huge and female quiz show hosts so rare, I suspect nobody could imagine it done any other way. Obediently, I narrowed my eyes and snarled at the contestants, sneering at them for failing to get correct answers when, secretly, I could barely understand the questions.

But my heart was never in it. If you watch the show today, you’ll see a spirit much truer to my natural instincts: I hope you’ll see how much I admire and like the teams (taking the mickey sometimes, but only as a traditional British way to show

Fine-boned, neatly coiffed: Anne Robinson, new host of Countdown affection and respect), what a collaborative project it is between us all (the contestants, question writers, production team, brilliant crew and me), and how faintly ridiculous I find the whole notion of quiz shows and television anyway. Less Anne Robinson, more Humphrey Lyttelton – and that’s just my skin.

I was thinking about this the other day as I looked through my old school reports. I have mentioned publicly, in the past, that I was unhappy at the prestigious school I went to, and sometimes wondered if that’s why they’ve never invited me back to give a talk or a prize. I am otherwise respectable, after all. I haven’t smoked on TV since 2001 and I’ve only made one porn film. So I’ve wondered if they don’t get in touch because I said it was an unhappy place, and whether that was unfair. But how could I ever know?

Then, last week, my mother found my old school reports.

Having read them, I see my error at last: I’ve been too kind about that vipers’ nest.

I was a lonely, self-critical, square and embarrassed child, with difficult things going on outside school that they knew nothing about because they never asked. Yet I turned up every day, did my homework and broadly what I was told, liked most of the teachers, organised charity fundraisers, and edited the school magazine. But relentlessly these reports say I’m underachieving, letting myself down, “showing off ” and being insufficiently “submissive” or “disciplined”. They barely have a kind word to say.

In my very first year, aged 11, when I remember feeling happy and trying hard to please, they wrote that I was “wilful”, “pushy” and “disappointing”. By 12, I was apparently “too clever for her own good”. They wrote this kind of stuff, shaming and squashing and punishing growing girls – often criticising the very qualities they would have congratulated in boys – then posted it out with no idea of how desperately those girls might need their parents to be proud of them, or what might happen if they weren’t.

A friend from the same school, now a wonderful teacher herself, actually burned her old reports rather than risk her daughters finding and reading them. Even if we were as awful as these verbal spankings suggest, how was shame going to help? As I learned when I finally stopped smoking after 20 years, shame doesn’t help.

It’s a modern cliché that today’s young generation of snowflakes demand too much gentle treatment. Good luck to them, I say. What’s so wrong with an expectation of kindness? What’s so great about making people feel bad? It was good shtick on Weakest Link but even Anne Robinson, who always did it with a twinkle, doesn’t do it now. So far on Countdown, she’s being nice to everyone.

As for Only Connect, change may be afoot. Some cherished crew members are moving on. Next year might be all different. I hope it won’t but, for now, I’m prouder of it than ever. The new series, shot in lockdown, is full of joy. There is love in it. And yet the questions are as gruesome as ever. They are the villains so I don’t need to be. Like the world itself, on a good day, Only Connect is terrifying but happy.

On Only Connect, I’d snarl and narrow my eyes, but my heart was never really in it