Riddiculous

Current revision as of 21:01, 18 July 2024

Synopsis

Daytime show filled with quizzing and riddles. The quizzing is handled by Ranvir Singh from ITV's Good Morning Britain; the riddles are posed by Henry Lewis from The Goes Wrong Show.

Three couples start the show, answering trivia questions on the buzzer, £50 per right answer. First couple to get three correct answers is asked a word riddle by Henry - he thinks these are quite simple, so £100 for the riddles. Whether the riddle's solved or not, everyone's count is reset to zero. The round ends when four riddles have been asked, and the team with least money leaves here.

Round two is similar - £100 for the trivia questions, £250 for the riddles. There's now a visual clue, and some unnecessary complication - only one player can answer, and there's a 60-second time limit to declare a final answer. In this round, riddles can be passed to the other team for half the money, £125.

Round three ups the stakes further - £150 for the trivia, £500 for the riddles (£250 if passed). We're back to word riddles, and these are properly hard. The team with less money leaves after this round.

The winning team usually has about £3000 in their bank. To win the money, they must complete "Henry's Riddle Run" - six Dingbat-style puzzles in a minute. It's literally say what you see, to make a familiar phrase or saying.

But the game isn't over there. Complete the Riddle Run, and the team can double their money by answering one further riddle. Play and get it wrong, they leave with the consolation prize of a Riddiculous teacup and saucer. That challenge is rarely taken up, so we often end on a bit of an anticlimax.

Riddiculous has a light tone, there's plenty of smiles and good humour from Ranvir and Henry. The relationship between the two leads is natural, there's a great foundation for future series, which was confirmed in August 2023. The trivia has little touches to show they've taken care - all the answers begin with a letter, or have a common element like food or placenames. Upbeat and mischievous music from Paul Farrer, and an unusual set design, adds to the atmosphere.

Best of all, Riddiculous encourages us to play along at home. Most of the show is quite approachable for 3pm viewers raised on a diet of Tenable and Lingo; only the final minutes might be described as a bit difficult.

The money values in the second series were decreased, First round right answers to trivia questions were now worth £25, cash for riddles were unchanged for this round only, second round right answers to trivia are now worth £50 with riddles now worth £200 and passing it over now worth £100 and the third round cash values for right answers to trivia now worth £100 with riddles now worth £300 however if passed over now worth £150.

Much like the recent revival of Deal or No Deal, you would think that decreased cash prizes might hurt the show, but they didn't: an average of 1.3 million viewers watched the second series in January 2024 with a further 2.7 million streams on ITVX, and the commisioning of a third series was confirmed in July 2024.

Theme music

Paul Farrer, credited for "Music".

Trivia

First game show from The Whisper Group, which had previously concentrated on sports shows - especially Formula One for Channel 4 and cricket for the BBC. Whisper was founded by Jake Humphrey from Bamzooki.

The answer to the riddle was "Cheese".

Web links

Wikipedia entry

See also

Weaver's Week review

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