Cluedo

Revision as of 21:59, 20 May 2006

Host

James Bellini (original host)

Chris Tarrant

Richard Madeley

Broadcast

ITV, 1990-3

Synopsis

Based on the best-selling board game, six mega-celebs (well, I've heard of Richard Wilson, Rula Lenska and Patricia Routledge so that'll do me) would play host to a murder whilst four lesser mortals would, by watching the films and interviewing the suspects, play a deduction game to find out that Colonel Mustard murdered the bloke in the Drawing Room with the Candlestick.

The murderer would then tell us why they did it, accompanied with a film and a Psycho style 'Werr! Werr! Werr!' soundtrack as someone gets murdered off camera.

Hilariously, as a joke (possibly) the host would then at the end say how the rest were free to go but the murderer would have to stay behind for questioning. Then return the following week.

For some obscure reason, they changed the six main actors every series.

Key moments

How the host always actually knew who did it all the time, potentially giving the murderer time to run off. They could have told us whodunit right at the opening of the show and saved us about 20 minutes.

Inventor

Adapted for television by Stephen Leahy, based on the Hasbro board game.

Theme music

Composed by Richard G. Mitchell and Kevin Malpass.

Trivia

On his stint as host, Chris Tarrant was later quoted as saying "I absolutely hated hosting Cluedo, it's the worst thing I've ever done. It took forever to make the thing. We used to have to turn the studio audience over just to make sure they didn't get any bed sores."

In the first series of the programme, the audience could vote with keypads to identify the murderer, before the ad break.

The "Arlington Grange" shown on the programme was in fact Arley Hall in Northwich, Cheshire. Stephen Leahy's new company, Ludus, revisited the location for Watching the Detectives.