A Question of Sport is back live... and proves why BBC was wrong to cull it
When Sue Barker, Matt Dawson and Phil Tufnell began work on their A Question of Sport theatre tour, they were told they could not use the show's original name, music or even round titles.
Never mind. For the opening night at the Brighton Arena, a capacity crowd welcomed Barker on stage with their own a cappella version of the old electronic theme tune, conjuring up Proustian images of Bill Beaumont, Emlyn Hughes and Princess Anne.
As with the trains to Twickenham on a Six Nations Saturday, these fans fulfilled a precise demographic. Mostly in midlife and beyond, they entered the auditorium two by two: couples who used to watch from the living-room sofa with a cup of tea. One suspected that a fair few probably read this newspaper.
A quiz with sporting legends reunite for a special live tour in 2025. Book your tickets for The Reunion Tour now via https://t.co/hezXOdQV1M 🎟️
#TheReunionTour #SueBarker #MattDawson #PhilTufnell pic.twitter.com/wlNxY1mYeW
— Sue, Matt & Phil Live! (@ReunionTourLive) October 24, 2024
These were the people the BBC abandoned four years ago, when it jazzed up the world's longest-running TV sports quiz via the recruitment of comedian Paddy McGuinness and team captains Ugo Monye and Sam Quek. Well, the BBC thought it was jazzing it up. In fact, it was betraying the very principle of a show that had always put the sport first.
Hence this nostalgic reprise – an unconventional sort of tribute act, in which the original performers play the old tunes but call them different things. Instead of 'Home and Away' and 'Sprint Finish', copyright rules meant that we had 'Hall of Fame' and 'Quickfire Quizzing'.
Still, the familiar chemistry remained intact. Tufnell invested every line with his characteristic cockney charm, and often left his seat to prowl around the stage in the manner of his old dressing-room nickname: 'The Cat'.
James Haskell – the hulking rugby player who was one of the four guest panellists – soon took to imitating Tufnell's gait, which he invested with an extra campness. Haskell's impersonation would not have got past a TV producer on political-correctness grounds, but it went down a storm in this hall.
'We're not on the BBC now!'
In a live setting, there was no one to bleep out the odd swear word, and the performers seemed to be enjoying the extra latitude. Even the clean-cut Dawson came up with a mildly blue joke when he suggested that Jonny Wilkinson could probably have landed the World Cup-winning drop goal 'with his k---'. Looking around cheekily, he continued 'We're not on the BBC now!'
The budget did not run to retreads of 'What Happened Next?' (those sports rights do not come cheap) or 'Mystery Guest', but any absences were more than compensated by all the varied ingredients that made up this show.
As well as the quiz rounds – in which former prop-forward Joe Marler proved a handy asset – the captains had a chance to tell a few anecdotes and narrate a couple of clips from their sporting heyday. Unsurprisingly, Dawson's highlights were rather more flattering than Tufnell's.
And then there was the audience participation element, in which each half of the Brighton Centre crowd was assigned to one of the teams. When a question was delivered, it was not just the panellists who started chewing it over. A low rumbling resonated around the whole auditorium as everyone racked their brains: which year was it when Brian Lara broke the world record?
A deep bond remains
After a couple of hours of lively entertainment, the opening instalment of an 11-match series went to Dawson's team, by 31 points to 29. Again, this was not a huge surprise. No matter which panellists are recruited through the tour, Dawson usually beats Tufnell to the buzzer.
But the outcome was beside the point. At the end, a standing ovation spoke of a deep bond between performers and audience, and of the folly of culling this much-loved show too soon.
Sue, Matt and Phil: The Reunion Tour plays its second night at London's Apollo Theatre on March 2, then continues to Bath, Leicester and Bournemouth next week.
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