Noel on Strike

It's one of those spoofs that is more famous than the thing it's spoofing. The danger I suppose of using something contemporary in an otherwise timeless comedy programme.


Having said that, their Masterchef spoof must be pretty unintelligible to anyone who doesn't remember the original Masterchef, but at least that had more longevity than Noel's Addicts.


Incidently i seem to remember Noel having a couple more short lived prime time weekday shows, particularly between Late Late and Saturday Roadshow

I remember Ross Lee appearing on some channel 4 programmes a while before that*. In fact it looks like he was also on The Sunday Show before that series of NHP


*I think he was a regular on Surf Potatoes?

Yes! Noel's Addicts is now far more famous for the Reeves and Mortimer parody than the series itself. It wasn't a spin-off from Telly Addicts though it was made by the same production team at Pebble Mill. The concept was that each week Noel would meet members of the public and celebrities with weird hobbies and collections, some in the studio and some on film, where they would show off their wares and then do a quiz about them for a trophy. I remember Brian Johnston, the cricket commentator, was on the first one talking about how much he loved Neighbours, and promptly managed to get no points in the quiz.

I watched it every week in the spring of 1992, but I watched any old rubbish in those days - and also I remember it was on a Tuesday night while I was doing textiles in CDT in school that term on Wednesdays, so I always associate it with watching it while doing cross stitch ready for the next day. Funny the things, eh? That and the 1992 revival of The Comedians.

The other thing about Noel's Addicts that I used to like is that it used cypher graphics, as they did on Top of the Pops circa 1990, when all the captions and graphics would fly all over the screen, which I always used to like. I was a sucker for a whizzy graphic in those days. Such a shame The Day Today made them all look ridiculous.

There was a Telly Addicts spin-off nobody remembers, though - Noel's Telly Years.



Always good to see Alan Hansen in a light entertainment context. This lasted two series in 1996-97, and seemed to have been created purely to get more use out of the archive footage they'd got for Telly Addicts. Each week would be based on a different year and the guests would be various people who were famous that year. It was quite good fun but I remember it being exceptionally low budget and I wondered at the time if any of the guests thought it was the front for a Gotcha. I remember the second series, presumably because it was getting too hard to find four relevant celebs, only had two celebrities from the given year and a current comedian, presumably to jolly things along a bit.



It didn't discover Ross Lee, because I first saw him on long-forgotten C4 TV review show Surf Potatoes with Max Beesley and Dani Behr in 1994. He was challenged each week to appear on television somewhere and I remember him phoning up Election Call and trying to get in shot on a by-election special and sundry other things. And to win the challenge he had to say on air his catchphrase "Showbusiness, I love it!".

I remember noels telly years, as one time Gareth Edwards was on. Another week, one of the guests was on wearing flares......

Yes, I remembered correctly. That was the best bit of the show I seem to remember. A great idea until the other channels catch on of course

Whatever Next? Was one that fell into that category. A quiz show based on predicting what would or wouldn't happen next, after the tape rolled after the freeze of the archive or specially recorded film.

The film footage for the programme they shot themselves, seemed to feature Noel in and around Shepherds Bush Market, I seem to recall.
They never bumped into Enid and her film crew though - which would have made for a good set-up.

And of course The World of the Secret Camera from summer 1999, aka "we need to give Noel something to do now both of his shows have been axed..."

Was he still under contract.?

Yes his contract ran out end of March 2000 I believe. Post House Party he did the Secret Camera series, a radio 2 series on children's radio, the final (at that point) Noel's Christmas Presents and a couple of compilations of series 8 of NHP - on NTV (http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/b641a27b8880408a81bab4aaced96e10) and a series 8 highlights show (http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/f977cc4e2af3449c9df3a4ffe5eec495). These were bumped out on Sunday mornings in March 2000, which I assumed was to get them out before his contract ended, given it was a full year since the series finished.

The one Mr bloody falls to piece...

In English?

Just watch: I dont want to give it away. clue is 15mins