Noel on Strike

This was truly appalling. I thought the October 1996 relaunch was pathetic, the 1997 look just ruined the whole premise of the show.


I remember talking with someone who felt the same, that "Crinkley Bottom" was in the mind of the viewer. You were never meant to see it for real. You would see the "locals" and hear Noel talking about it and various locations, and it was all in the mind of the viewer.

However they started to meddle with that premise from the autumn of 1994 when the opening titles showed a cartoon version of the village. Okay, not terrible, but it was the start of the meddling process.

In 1996 when they dumped the fantastic music, and in the opening titles you saw the outside of the great house for the first time, and the approach road, it just ruined it.

By October 1997, the production team must have been sniffing their felt top pens, as this idea for the set was truly terrible, and I am surprised Noel agreed to this new look, especially the truly crap "window" view of the village, I mean even Channel 5 could have built a better set for one of their shows back then than this.

I am amazed at how fast the whole show went down the crapper, from the rot set in autumn 1994 to the appalling look of this in October 1997.

I know it has been said before but that set looks totally unfinished. Exposed metal bars on the balcony, part of stone balcony which just stops - as though they ran out of balsa wood, metal bars/scaffolding in the background and the lighting rig clearly visible above the set. That set looks neither like a house, nor a studio - with the unmatching stage setup on both sides and the unfinished house in the middle. I am unsure why they broadcast the show from this unfinished state. It was like this for many weeks before they modified it to look more like an actual country house and covered over the metal structures that were clearly visible from the earlier part of the series and took away the "music stage" on the right. I know money was tight but they could have made a better effort than this.

Series 7 set was awful compared with all the other series of the House Party. Despite this, it was a fairly enjoyable Series overall, especially after Xmas (after it was taken off air temporarily and changes were made). The fifth series was the best in my opinion.

I like how the Danish version's set was true to the original, whilst having a unique touch.



The German didn't use the old country house style but still very much is in a similar vain.


The Belgen version moved further way from the original still.


And here's how the Dutch adapted things.

Is it meant to be an apartment, a casino or just a studio setting?

Wow, fascinating to see that BBC One balloon joke in something better than late '90s RealVideo quality on the MHP Private Parts. Now I know it really did fall flat with the audience and it wasn't just the compression taking out the audience laughter or something!

They managed to somehow predict the later idents where the balloon was digitally added in.

Apologies if it has been discussed, but I couldn’t find it elsewhere.

How well did NHP sell abroad? I have recollections of watching it as a 4-5 year old (mid 1990s) in New Zealand and Mr Blobby stuck with me for years. I can’t offer any further information as to screening time or network, but we definitely got it here.

The titles of the German version is quite clearly animated by the same people that did the second NHP titles. Didn’t have a sex shop in the UK version, though...

Blimey, It was a Saturday night light entertainment show not 'Batman Begins'. I'm not sure they expected you to commit to the premise that seriously.

Ehh, he has a point though. A lot of people have said that the show was better when most of Crinkley Bottom was left to your imagination.

People discuss Batman seriously, why can't we discuss Noel's House Party seriously? They're both unrealistic.

BBC One Balloon, is not the only ident of the past seen in that video. The African jumping up and down dancers are briefly seen in the Holiday trailer as well.

Anyway back to NHP - Looking at some of the overseas European versions, and the reboot look of Series 7, I think you can probably say with a degree of accuracy, that the BBC/Unique looked around at what other versions were doing with the set, and decided the look should really be a 'half way house'.
Part faux Country House and part no point pretending - it's really a studio in West London.

I'd have argued if you wanted to move away from the Country Manor and Great Hall look, head totally for the VTM Belgium look.

I believe they're actually the Maasai tribe in Kenya...

As I’ve said under the video, this is spot on. It looks like the brief has been to take it younger, so if you couple the dancer stings and the new set with all it’s bright colours, you are pretty much bang on trend for a 1997 Saturday night entertainment show. And as part of that, they’ve clearly thought everyone knows it is studio so why pretend? Have a studio set with a few leanings towards a house and that will do. Problem is, it goes a bit too far and requires you to suspend your disbelief a bit too much. And as we now know, Noel wasn’t happy with this development at all. And with Michael Leggo and Guy Freeman about to disappear from the credits, he won’t have his mates around anymore either...