Who Dares Wins (TV series)
Encyclopedia
- For the Australian game show, see Who Dares Wins (game show)Who Dares Wins (game show)Who Dares Wins is an Australian adventure game show that aired on the Seven Network between 1996 and 1998, with re-runs airing in 2005 and 2007...
. For the UK game show, see Who Dares Wins (UK game show)Who Dares Wins (UK game show)Who Dares Wins is a BBC National Lottery game show broadcast on BBC One since 17 November 2007. The programme is hosted by Nick Knowles.-Format:...
.
Who Dares Wins was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
comedy sketch show broadcast between 1983 and 1988, featuring Jimmy Mulville
Jimmy Mulville
James Thomas "Jimmy" Mulville is an English comedian, comedy writer, producer and television presenter. Jimmy Mulville is best known for co-founding in 1986 the British independent television production company Hat Trick Productions with Denise O'Donoghue and Rory McGrath...
, Rory McGrath
Rory McGrath
Patrick Rory McGrath is an English comedian and writer. He is best known for roles in Who Dares Wins, Chelmsford 123, Three Men in a Boat and its successors. He was also a regular panellist on They Think It's All Over....
, Philip Pope
Philip Pope
Philip R. J. Pope is a British composer and actor. He was educated at Downside School and New College, Oxford.-Performer:He appeared in the Oxford Revue in Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1978 and 1979, both with Angus Deayton...
, Julia Hills
Julia Hills
Julia Hills is a British actress, known for being a member of the cast of the Channel 4 late-night comedy sketch show Who Dares Wins in the 1980s. She also played the character of Rona, the man-hungry neighbour, in eight series of the BBC hit sitcom 2point4 children...
and Tony Robinson
Tony Robinson
Tony Robinson is an English actor, comedian, author, broadcaster and political campaigner. He is best known for playing Baldrick in the BBC television series Blackadder, and for hosting Channel 4 programmes such as Time Team and The Worst Jobs in History. Robinson is a member of the Labour Party...
. It was one of the first TV outlets for alternative comedy
Alternative comedy
Alternative comedy is a term that originated in the 1980s for a style of comedy that makes a conscious break with the mainstream comedic style of an era, and typically avoids relying on a standardised structure of a sequence of jokes with punch lines. Patton Oswalt defines it as "comedy where the...
and was broadcast by Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
late at night in a first attempt at "Post-Pub television" (the opening title sequence shows a man staggering home from the pub to get to the television in time for the programme). It was eventually aired by the Playboy Channel in cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
outlets in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
The show's title is also the motto of the British Special Air Service
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...
regiment (see Who Dares Wins
Who Dares Wins
Who Dares, Wins, Latin: "Qui audet adipiscitur" is a motto that originated with the British Special Air Service. It is normally credited to the founder of the SAS, David Stirling. The motto has been used by nine elite special forces units around the world that in some way have historical ties to...
), whose badge featured in the title sequence, and was often supplemented by a subtitle, e.g., "a week in Benidorm".
Mulville, McGrath and Pope had all contributed material to Not the Nine O'Clock News
Not the Nine O'Clock News
Not the Nine O'Clock News is a television comedy sketch show which was broadcast on BBC 2 from 1979 to 1982.Originally shown as a comedy "alternative" to the BBC Nine O'Clock News on BBC 1, it featured satirical sketches on current news stories and popular culture, as well as parody songs, comedy...
. Other script material was provided by Not the Nine O'Clock News regulars Colin Bostock-Smith and Andy Hamilton
Andy Hamilton
Andrew Neil Hamilton is a British comedian, game show panellist, television director, comedy screenwriter and radio dramatist.-Early life:...
as well as alternative comedy writer Tony Sarchet
Tony Sarchet
Tony Sarchet is a British television and radio writer for alternative comedy shows.Sarchet studied chemistry at University College Oxford, where he was a member of the University College Players and wrote a review called Gargoyles at the Oxford Playhouse with John Albery and Graham Wall in 1978.He...
. The series established Mulville's Hat Trick Productions
Hat Trick Productions
Hat Trick Productions is a British independent production company that produces television programmes, mainly specialising in comedy.-History:...
as a producer of comedy material for Channel 4. The show was recorded at the former independent production facility Limehouse Studios
Limehouse Studios
Limehouse Studios was an independently-owned television studio complex built in No. 10 Warehouse of the South Quay Import Dock. This was located at the eastern end of Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs in London, which opened in 1983...
, on a soundstage in front of a live audience.
The programme sometimes satirised current events but the mainstay was simple observational comedy and frequently employed base humour (for example, the tracking camera shot in the title sequence showed a drunk who had urinated in his trousers).
The show pioneered a sketch style involving a roaming camera - the camera would move from character to character as they delivered their lines.
Notable sketches included:
- "The Pandas" - a recurring sketch with two male giant pandasGiant PandaThe giant panda, or panda is a bear native to central-western and south western China. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the panda's diet is 99% bamboo...
in a zoo, discussing life and bamboo shoots. The animals were portrayed with the stereotype mannerisms, attitudes - and strong language - of contemporary young, working-class men;
- Philip Pope singing a Barry ManilowBarry ManilowBarry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, producer, conductor, and performer, best known for such recordings as "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana ."...
-style song, initially praising a lost love, but realising how horrible she was and changing his lyrics accordingly;
- Tony Robinson appearing in a sketch possibly inspired by The Emperor's New ClothesThe Emperor's New Clothes"The Emperor's New Clothes" is a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent...
, as a man being sold "going naked" by a pair of tailorTailorA tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits, coats, trousers,...
s. The sketch involved Robinson actually appearing on stage totally naked... and then hanging around in later sketches, still naked, seemingly not knowing what to do with himself;
- A parody of Channel 4Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
's "red triangle". ( These were programmes with content regarded as "more explicit" than that normally shown on British TV, and were often foreign-language films. ) The parody showed clips from a supposed EskimoEskimoEskimos or Inuit–Yupik peoples are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia , across Alaska , Canada, and Greenland....
pornographic film featuring "explicit nose rubbing" and "nose masturbation";
- A guest appearance by comedian Frankie HowerdFrankie HowerdFrancis Alick "Frankie" Howerd OBE was an English comedian and comic actor whose career, described by fellow comedian Barry Cryer as "a series of comebacks", spanned six decades.-Early career:...
playing a member of the public who has never been on stage or TV, but just happens to look exactly like... Frankie Howerd; ( "The resemblance is uncanny, isn't it ?" )
- A controversial sketch that parodied contemporary airline adverts by explicitly stating the air-hostessesFlight attendantFlight attendants or cabin crew are members of an aircrew employed by airlines primarily to ensure the safety and comfort of passengers aboard commercial flights, on select business jet aircraft, and on some military aircraft.-History:The role of a flight attendant derives from that of similar...
were sexually available. Unfortunately, the name chosen for the fictional airline turned out to be the name of a real, lesser-known airline;
- A sketch before the opening credits featuring a young couple simulating sexual intercourseSexual intercourseSexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
... which turns out to be a "language course" - they are conjugating the French verb venir (to comeOrgasmOrgasm is the peak of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure...
);
The show was produced by Hat Trick Productions
Hat Trick Productions
Hat Trick Productions is a British independent production company that produces television programmes, mainly specialising in comedy.-History:...
for Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
Television.