A panel show or panel game is a radio or television game show in which a panel of celebrities participate. Celebrity panelists may compete with each other, such as on The News Quiz; facilitate play by non-celebrity contestants, such as on Match Game and Blankety Blank; or do both, such as on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. The genre can be traced to 1938, when Information Please debuted on U.S. radio. The earliest known television panel show is Play the Game, a charades show in 1946. The modern trend of comedy panel shows can find early roots with Stop Me If You've Heard This One in 1939 and Can You Top This? in 1940. While panel shows were more popular in the past in the U.S., they are still very common in the United Kingdom.
David Edward Williams, known professionally as David Walliams, is an English comedian, actor, writer, and television personality. He is best known for his work with Matt Lucas on the BBC sketch comedy series Little Britain (2003–2006) and Come Fly With Me (2010–2011). From 2012 to 2022, Walliams was a judge on the television talent show competition Britain's Got Talent on ITV. He is also a writer of children's books, having sold more than 37 million copies worldwide.
Matthew Richard Lucas is an English actor, comedian, writer, and television presenter. He is best known for his work with David Walliams on the BBC sketch comedy series Little Britain (2003–2006) and Come Fly with Me (2010–2011).
Gabrielle Nicole Logan is a Welsh television and radio presenter, and a former rhythmic gymnast who represented Wales and Great Britain. She hosted Final Score for BBC Sport from 2009 until 2013. She has also presented live sports events for the BBC, including a revived episode of Superstars in December 2012 and the London Marathon since 2015. Since 2013, she has co-hosted Sports Personality of the Year for the BBC and she presented the second series of The Edge in 2015.
Stephen James Merchant is an English comedian, actor, director, and writer. Merchant was the co-writer and co-director of the British TV comedy series The Office (2001–2003), and co-writer, co-director, and co-star of both Extras (2005–2007) and Life's Too Short (2011–2013) alongside Ricky Gervais. With Gervais and Karl Pilkington, he hosted The Ricky Gervais Show in its radio, podcast, audiobook, and television formats; the radio version won a bronze Sony Award. He also provided the voice of the robotic "Intelligence Dampening Sphere" Wheatley in the 2011 video game Portal 2. Merchant co-developed the Sky One travel documentary series An Idiot Abroad (2010–2012) and co-created Lip Sync Battle (2015–present).
Miranda Katherine Hart Dyke is an English actress, comedian and writer. Following drama training at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts, Hart began writing material for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and making appearances in BBC sitcoms, including Hyperdrive (2006–2007) and Not Going Out (2006–2009).
Sport Relief was a biennial charity event from Comic Relief, in association with BBC Sport, established in 2002.
Stephen Kehinde Amos is a British stand-up comedian and television personality. A regular on the international comedy circuit, he is known for including his audience members during his shows. He began his career as a compere at the Big Fish comedy clubs in South London, and has been nominated for Chortle's Best Compere Award three times in 2004, 2007 and 2008.
Insert Name Here is a British comedy panel game show presented by Sue Perkins. The programme made its debut on BBC Two on 4 January 2016. In each episode two teams of three compete to answer questions about famous people, past and present, who have just one thing in common: they share the same name. The team captains are Josh Widdicombe and Richard Osman. The show was canceled in February 2020 due to low viewership.
Emma Louise Willis is an English broadcaster. She is known for her television and radio work with Channel 5, BBC, ITV, and Heart FM. Willis has presented Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother (2013–2018), as well as the spin-off series Big Brother's Bit on the Side (2011–2015). She has presented The Voice UK (2014–present), and the children's spin-off The Voice Kids UK (2017–2023). In 2019 and 2021, Willis presented the second and third series of The Circle. She will be co-hosting Love Is Blind: UK with her husband Matt Willis.
Laura Whitmore is an Irish media personality and model based in London. She was a video jockey for MTV in 2008, and has since presented television shows, such as This Morning (2014), Survival of the Fittest (2018) and Love Island (2020–2022). In 2020, Whitmore became a team captain on the comedy panel show Celebrity Juice. In 2023, Laura hosted her first ITV1 chat show 'Laura Whitmore's Breakfast Show' and released her own ITVX documentary series 'Laura Whitmore Investigates'.
Christine Murray, known professionally as Crissy Rock, is an English award-winning actress, stand-up comedian, and best-selling author, most notable for her role as Maggie Conlan in the 1994 film Ladybird, Ladybird, and as Janey York in Benidorm whom she played from 2007, until 2011 when she left the show, although she returned in Episode 6 of Series 5 for a cameo role, and then again for two episodes of Series 7 in 2015.
Richard Thomas Osman is an English author, television presenter, producer, novelist, and comedian. He is the creator and former co-presenter of the BBC One television quiz show Pointless. He has presented the BBC Two quiz shows Two Tribes and Richard Osman's House of Games and been a team captain on the comedy panel shows Insert Name Here and The Fake News Show. He has made appearances on British panel shows including Would I Lie To You? and QI.
A League of Their Own is a British sports-based comedy panel game that was first broadcast on Sky One on 11 March 2010. The show is currently hosted by Romesh Ranganathan and features Jamie Redknapp and Jill Scott as team captains and Micah Richards and Mo Gilligan as regular panellists.
Michael John Flanagan is an English comedian. Flanagan has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and toured Britain with stand-up shows. He presented Micky Flanagan: What Chance Change? for Radio 4 and has appeared on various TV shows including Mock the Week, A League of Their Own, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Was It Something I Said?, Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow and I Love My Country.
That Puppet Game Show is a British television series broadcast on BBC One between 10 August 2013 and 5 January 2014. The show was made by the BBC in conjunction with The Jim Henson Company and featured the Miskreant Puppets from Puppet Up! in their first family-related appearance. The show was hosted by a puppet character "Dougie Colon" and featured celebrities playing games alongside puppet characters. On 25 October 2013, it was announced that the show had been axed after the show had attracted largely negative press reviews and struggled in the ratings.
Was It Something I Said? is a British comedy panel show that was broadcast on Channel 4, presented by David Mitchell and featuring team captains Richard Ayoade and Micky Flanagan. Celebrity guest narrators appeared in each episode, including David Harewood, Phil Daniels, Charles Dance and Mariella Frostrup.
Sport Relief 2014 is a fundraising event organised by Sport Relief. A number of run-up events took place and the main event consisted of a live telethon broadcast on BBC One and BBC Two from the evening of Friday 21 March 2014 to early the following morning. Due to the closure of BBC Television Centre, the live studio event is now broadcast from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.
Red Nose Day 2015 was a fund-raising event organised by Comic Relief. It was broadcast live on BBC One and BBC Two from the evening of Friday 13th March 2015 in to the early hours of Saturday 14th March 2015 and it was part of the "Face the Funny" campaign.
