Noel on Strike

Its on public record that noel hated series 6 and 7 set, while I wasn't impressed with either set. I think money hurricane was a backwards set, and what would have been a better idea is what there tired near the end of s4, IE grab a grand in the Number cruncher box...

I remember seeing the set in TC1 and it was an 'in the round' set rather than the traditional layout of audience at one end and set at the other. It sat in the middle of the studio and was all set rather than utilising studio wall behind the audience.

They used to do things to the audience like lower the seat down underneath the seating area to be gunged for example. They couldn't do that on the standard audience rostra

Hence the move of studio I assume, it was much too big an ambition for the others

I agree what a shambles that ending was, I wonder why they just didn't scrap the pre recorded clips rather than play them on top of something going on in the studio.

They must have ran way over if they were rolling the credits during Grab a Grand.

And yes I also remember how Grab a Grand got increasingly over the top and daft as it went on.

There is also no way that money counting machine at the end was anywhere near accurate!

That'll be the final series when they had the Shakespeare's Globe-type set. Never really worked for the show - you could tell all the audience were out of Noel's eyeline so he had nothing to play to. Not sure why they needed TC1 for it, although there was also a fairly big "garden" set outside.

Yes good point with the lowering of the seats - and the bespoke plastic seating also gave them free reign to start pouring all sorts of gunk over the audience which was always limited with the soft red cushions of the standard BBC seating.

And yes the calculation of the money during the money hurricane era is suspiciously quick. Given how long it sometimes took for the celebrity (and, for the first few weeks, audience member also) to return from grabbing the money, it all did seem a bit pointless if it was all pre-determined anyway.

Are there any full episodes of Noel's House Party Series 6, 7 and 8 on the internet such as YouTube? I've only seen short clips.

Not at present, but the current Andy Pearman uploads are about to hit series 6 (which I actually thought was an improvement on 5, which was an inconsistent mess)

Does anyone have any idea what sort of background Andy Pearman has, or was he just a compulsive recorder back in the day?

According to his CV he was Transmission Controller at BFBS TV during the 00s which is possibly where he might have stumbled across episodes of Noel's House Party?

That would explain how he ended up with such a vast back catalogue. He had a massive amount of uploads before he announced copyright holders were coming down on him.

He also worked on the Radio 1 Roadshows.

I believe we will be seeing S6 either this weekend or Next weekend.

The thing was S5, yes it was all over the place, yes some ideas where stupid like Party starts and end outside the BBC appearing, Beat your neighbour ( which should have never been created) and why the grab a grand become so over the top is unreal. Overall is was still a good series. I did like how a few of the Gotcha were a pure surprise to a few people.

S3 was the peak, S4 the rot started, S5 it spread, S6 is going off the cliff...

He seems to have uploaded some recent episodes from thier original BBC1 airings, with the end credits of the preceding shows and continuity.

I can't wait for that double NTV with the guy shouting and swearing because his pal ended up on the telly