| Genre: | Game show |
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| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
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| Runtime: | 30 minutes |
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| Network2: | BBC One |
Give Us a Clue is a British televised game show version of charades which was broadcast on ITV from 1979 to 1992. The original host was Michael Aspel from 1979 to 1984, followed by Michael Parkinson from 1984 to 1992. The show featured two teams, one captained by Lionel Blair and the other by Una Stubbs. Later editions of the programme had Liza Goddard as captain of the women's team. Norman Vaughan stood in for Blair for four episodes in the second series and Joyce Blair stood in for Stubbs for the 1981 Royal Wedding special.
Originally, each team consisted of the captain, two fellow celebrities and one non-celebrity, but the non-celebrity participants were soon dropped, another celebrity being added in their place. In the second episode of Series 2 (broadcast on 5 November 1979), the non-celebrity contestant, London fashion designer Leslie Dean, read the wrong side of the card handed to him and as a result started miming his own name rather than the specified film. In his autobiography, Lionel Blair stated that it was this incident that led to the dropping of non-celebrity participants.[1]
A revived version was broadcast by BBC One in 1997 over 30 episodes, hosted by Tim Clark. Teams were captained by Christopher Blake and Julie Peasgood and the show introduced a lateral thinking puzzle (which the host could "give clues to"). Give Us a Clue returned for a special Comic Relief episode in March 2011 with Sara Cox, Christopher Biggins, Lionel Blair, Una Stubbs, Holly Walsh, Jenni Falconer and David Walliams.
The game is based on charades, a party game where players used mime rather than speaking to demonstrate a name, phrase, book, play, film or TV programme. Each player was given roughly two minutes to act out their given subject in front of his/her team, and if the others were unsuccessful in guessing correctly, the opposing team would have a chance to answer for a bonus point.
| Series | Start date | End date | Episodes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 January 1979 | 27 March 1979 | 13 | |
| 2 | 29 October 1979 | 11 February 1980 | 16 | |
| 3 | 25 August 1980 | 29 December 1980 | 19 | |
| Specials | 14 May 1981 | 29 July 1981 | 2 | |
| 4 | 1 September 1981 | 20 April 1982 | 18 | |
| 5 | 4 May 1982 | 26 December 1982 | 18 | |
| 6 | 6 September 1983 | 17 April 1984 | 20 | |
| 7 | 4 September 1984 | 1 January 1985 | 16 | |
| 8 | 28 May 1985 | 2 July 1985 | 6 | |
| 9 | 12 September 1985 | 26 December 1985 | 15 | |
| 10 | 3 July 1986 | 21 August 1986 | 8 | |
| 11 | 4 January 1988 | 18 March 1988 | 55 | |
| 12 | 1 November 1988 | 2 December 1988 | 20 | |
| 13 | 14 February 1989 | 10 March 1989 | 16 | |
| 14 | 5 December 1989 | 19 January 1990 | 16 | |
| 15 | 15 January 1991 | 8 March 1991 | 32 | |
| 16 | 3 September 1991 | 4 May 1992 | 33 | |
| 17 | 10 November 1997 | 19 December 1997 | 30 |
The first six series of Give Us a Clue have been released on DVD by Network, but only 98 out of the first 106 episodes were included. The eight episodes that are not in the collection had appearances of three celebrities with sexual abuse offences that were investigated in Operation Yewtree.
| Country | Local name | Host | Team captains | Network | Year aired | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [2] [3] | Hints | Frank Kramer (1983–97) Anita Witzier (1997–2003) Sofie van den Enk (2010–11) | - | KRO | 1983–2003 2010–11 | |
| [4] | Give Us a Clue | Les Thompson (1980s) Brian Edwards (1993) Marcus Lush (1999) Paula Bennett (2021–22) | Peter Rowley, Jenny Maxwell (1980s) Gary McCormick, Belinda Todd (1993) Gary McCormick, Alison Wall (1999) Hilary Barry, Tom Sainsbury (2021–22) | TVNZ (1980s) TV3 (1993) TVNZ (1999; 2021–22) | 1980s 1993 1999 August 11, 2021 – August 17, 2022 | |
| [5] | Dame una pista | Luján Argüelles | - | Cuatro | July 13, 2010 – January 7, 2011 | |
| [6] | Gäster med gester | Lennart Swahn (1982–99) Rickard Olsson (2011–12) | - | SVT | September 8, 1982 – January 5, 1999 2011–12 |