We’ve not even completed two whole months of the year yet and already I find myself reviewing a 4th new quiz show of 2026. Yes, I caught up with BBCs ‘Do You Know Your Place?” last night.
If you haven’t seen it, it’s a ‘light hearted celebrity
quiz’. A phrase which can strike terror into my heart at the best of times. But
let’s try to be fair about it. I believe that the BBC has created this show to
fit into the round hole currently occupied by Richard Osman’s House of Games.
That has 4 slebs, this has 3. That has Richard Osman, this has Vernon Kay. That
has several rounds, this has several rounds. That I find pretty entertaining,
this . . .
Look, I’ve only watched the one show. The first time I watched
House of Games I didn’t get it and didn’t think much of it. Now I’m always
happy to watch even when there are celebrities that I find a bit irritating on
it. I’ll come back to that.
How does it work? Well, each show features three
celebrities who stay on all week. Well, you know how House of Games and
Celebrity Mastermind often use celebrities you’ve never heard of ? Say no more.
Each show is about a specific town or city. The slebs watch short films made by
Paul Gorton. Paul who? The Traitors series 2 (I think). After each round our
Vern asks them one or two questions. Format of the questions varies – basically
True or False ( they call it I believe or I don’t believe but True or False is
what it is – Multiple Choice, and a round on local dialect. Some of the rounds
on House of Games can require quite a bit of mental agility, which is
diverting. There’s not a lot in this that is ever going to have the same
effect.
There isn’t a lot more to the show than this. Now I don’t
want to be horrible about host Vernon Kay. I’m told that he was not the
original choice as host, Apparently the original host (my sources didn’t say
who this was) cried off at very short notice and so the producers asked Vernon,
who was booked as a sleb guest, if he could host instead. Well, our Vern is
nothing if not a good, seasoned pro, with a light, friendly manner and bags of
experience hosting inconsequential shows. I have seen an in-print interview
with him where he described this show as being filled with ‘great banter’.
Sorry, but there was none that I noticed in last night’s show about Vernon’s
home town of Bolton when I watched. I found Vernon’s bursts of laughter at much
of what the celebrities said to be quite irritating – I just couldn’t see what
was funny in it. Mind you, it didn’t help that Anneka Rice was one of them.
Don’t get me wrong, Anneka was terrific when bounding around in support of good
cause building projects in Challenge Anneka, but that was a long time ago. When
I saw her a couple of years ago on House of Games, I just couldn’t stand the
way she kept interrupting and interjecting every two minutes. When she’s on the
screen I want to shout ‘Shut Up! It’s not all about you!’ every time she opens
her mouth.
When you get right down to it, it’s all very well trying to
make a House of Games style show, but without a House of Games style host it
all falls a bit flat. Richard Osmans don’t grow on trees – conjures up quite a
mental picture does that. It really all depends on how much you like the filmed
inserts, and to be honest, they were a little bit of a bore. When you get right
down to it, “Do You Know Your Place” is light, inoffensive and not at all for
me.
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