Truth about Brydon's new quiz

Rob Brydon’s new history quiz is not all it seems, it has been revealed.

His show, Your History, had been billed as a history-based celebrity panel game.

But fans who went to see the pilot being recorded at BBC Television Centre on Monday were surprised to learn that the game was actually at the centre of a scripted comedy show – about a bad panel game.

The premise is that Brydon plays an incompetent version of himself, who doesn’t want to be associated with hosting the half-baked quiz.

One audience member wrote on the NotBBC forums: ‘It was quite a bizarre experience [but] once it got going, it was actually rather funny in places, with most of the laughs coming from Brydon's attempts to hold court as the panel game became a train wreck.

‘If they pick out the more disastrous bits, the funnier banter and the classy ad-libs, it could play well as high farce. However, it would also be far too easy to focus on Brydon-as-host's incompetence, the (deliberately) awful jokes, the longueurs, and the guests' (acted) irritation, and present the result as a sort of Office-style study in awkwardness, which I think wouldn't be nearly as fun.’

 Jimmy Carr, David Mitchell, Jane Moore and Paul Ross played the panellists in the show, which was made by Brydon’s own production company, Jones The Film.

Published: 23 Nov 2005