The game consists of each panellist in turn announcing a landmark or street, most often a tube station on the London Underground system. The ostensible aim is to be the first to announce "Mornington Crescent", a station on the Northern line.[1] Interspersed with the turns is humorous discussion amongst the panellists and host regarding the rules and legality of each move, as well as the strategy the panellists are using. The actual aim of the game is to entertain the other participants and listeners with amusing discussion of the fictional rules and strategies.[2]
Origins
Mornington Crescent first appeared in the opening episode of the sixth series of BBC Radio 4's comedy panel show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, broadcast on 22 August 1978. Although five episodes transmitted in 1974–1975 are lost, Mornington Crescent seems to have made no appearance before 1978. It was played in every surviving episode of the sixth series. It has been played ever since.
The origins of the game are not clear. One claim is that it was invented by Geoffrey Perkins,[3] who stated in an interview that Mornington Crescent was created as a non-game.[4]Barry Cryer, a panellist on the programme from 1972 until shortly before his death in 2022, said that Geoffrey Perkins did not invent the game, and that it had been around since the 1960s.[5] According to Chairman Humphrey Lyttelton, the game was invented to vex a series producer who was unpopular with the panellists. One day, the team members were drinking, when they heard him coming. "Quick," said one, "let's invent a game with rules he'll never understand."[6]
Two players alternate naming the stations of the London Underground. The first to say "Finchley Central" wins. It is clear that the "best" time to say "Finchley Central" is exactly before your opponent does. Failing that, it is good that he should be considering it. You could, of course, say "Finchley Central" on your second turn. In that case, your opponent puffs on his cigarette and says, "Well,..." Shame on you.[7]
Gameplay on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
Panellists taking part at a BBC Radio recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't a ClueMornington Crescent gameplay involves announcing random place names in London, usually a station on the Underground system, for humorous effect
The objective of Mornington Crescent is to give the appearance of a game of skill and strategy, with complex and long-winded rules and strategies, to parody games in which similarly circuitous systems have evolved. The apparent rules are fictional, and its appeal to audiences lies in the ability of players to create an entertaining illusion of competitive gameplay.[2]
Humorous variations to the rules have been introduced to games. Humphrey Lyttelton would describe special rules to apply to that session, such as "Trumpington's Variations" or "Tudor Court Rules", so that almost every episode featuring Mornington Crescent introduced a variant. In one of them, first introduced in North Yorkshire, a player whose movement is blocked is considered to be "in Nidd" and is forced to remain in place for the next three moves. This tends to block the other players, putting them into Nidd as well and causing a roadblock. In one episode, every player ended up in Nidd and the rule had to be suspended so that the round could continue.[citation needed]
Over time, the destinations named by the panellists expanded beyond the Underground, in accordance with various regional expansions of the game. ISIHAC is recorded around the United Kingdom, and the game is occasionally modified accordingly. There have been versions in Slough and Leeds, as well as one in Scotland, played during the Edinburgh Fringe arts festival and a 2016 recording in Glasgow (where the name was changed to "Morningside Crescent")[8] and another variation played at recordings in Wales (called "Morganstown Crescent"). In one episode, recorded in Luton, panellists named locations as far afield as the Place de l'Étoile in Paris, Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg, and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, but a move to Luton High Street was ruled invalid for being too remote. In other episodes, an attempt was supposedly made to expand the territory to Manhattan (via Heathrow and JFK) but there was some disagreement as to whether or not the New York City Subway system was suited to the game. References have been made in various episodes of ISIHAC to international versions of the game, including "Mornington Croissant", supposedly based on the Paris Métro, and "Mornington Peninsula", the Australian variant. At least one full game of Mornington Croissant was played on air.[citation needed]
A regular feature that introduces Mornington Crescent is a letters section which begins with the chairman's comments ("I notice from the sheer weight of this week's postbag, we've received a little over no letters" and "I see from the number of letters raining down on us this week that the Scrabble factory has exploded again"). The selected letter each week is invariably from "A Mrs. Trellis of North Wales", whose incoherent letters usually mistake the chairman for another Radio 4 presenter or media personality. "Dear Libby," (she writes), "why oh why ... very nearly spells YOYO", or "Dear Mr. Titchmarsh, never let them tell you that size isn't important. My aunt told me that, but then all my new wallpaper fell off."[citation needed]
Finchley Central and Mornington Crescent have been played as a play-by-mail pastime, and in the 1980s were played by post in a number of play-by-mail magazines. One format involved a series of elimination rounds, with everyone except the winner of the current round going forward onto the next. A "type-in" computer version of the game for the BBC Micro was included in the April 1985 edition of The Micro User.[9] Mornington Crescent can now be played online, in the spirit of the radio series. Games are played by fans on Usenet, in diverse web forums,[10][11][12][13][14] and on the London Underground itself. A Facebook application has also been produced.[15]
When Mornington Crescent Underground station was reopened in 1998 after six years of closure for lift repairs, London Transport invited the Clue team to perform an opening ceremony.[16] A memorial plaque to the late Willie Rushton, one of the show's longest-serving panelists, was installed at the station in 2002.[17]
Spin-offs and publications
At Christmas 1984, Radio 4 broadcast a special programme, Everyman's Guide to Mornington Crescent, a "two-part documentary" on the history of the game and its rules, presented by Raymond Baxter.[18] At the end of part one (concentrating on the history), it was announced that part two (about the rules) had been postponed due to "scheduling difficulties".
Another documentary was broadcast on Christmas Eve 2005. It was named In Search of Mornington Crescent, and narrated by Andrew Marr.[19] This has since also been released on a BBC Audiobook CD.
The code for the first ever Mornington Crescent computer game, on a BBC Micro, was presented on p154 of the April 1985 edition of The Micro User, an early computer magazine.[22] Due to space restrictions, the rules for the game were not published but were promised for the next month's edition, along with an explanation by a member of the Society for the Support of Mornington Crescent, Dr. Richard Taylor-Fischel. Unfortunately, in that edition on the Letters page, p121, he took umbrage at the modifications to the game that had been necessary to produce a computer program and consequently withdrew his collaboration, using the name Dr. R. T. Fischel PhD and bar. [23]
The third book of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series, Whispers Underground, has its chapters named after Tube stations, the last chapter being (naturally) ... Mornington Crescent.[24]
David Graeme Garden OBE is a Scottish comedian, actor, author, artist and television presenter, best known as a member of the Goodies and a regular panellist on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue is a BBC radio comedy panel game. Billed as "the antidote to panel games", it consists of two teams of two comedians being given "silly things to do" by a chairman. The show was launched in April 1972 as a parody of radio and TV panel games, and has been broadcast since on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, with repeats aired on BBC Radio 4 Extra and, in the 1980s and 1990s, on BBC Radio 2. The 50th series was broadcast in November and December 2007.
Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor OBE was an English comedian and actor, best known as a member of The Goodies.
Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton, also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster from the Lyttelton family.
Mornington Crescent is a London Underground station in Somers Town in north west London, named after the nearby street. The station is on the Charing Cross branch of the Northern line, between Camden Town and Euston stations. It is in Travelcard Zone 2.
Dollis Hill is a London Underground station at Dollis Hill near to Willesden and Gladstone Park of the London Borough of Brent. It is on the Jubilee line, between Neasden and Willesden Green stations and is in Travelcard Zone 3. Metropolitan line trains pass through the station without stopping here.
Geoffrey Howard Perkins was a British comedy producer, writer and performer. He was BBC head of comedy between 1995 and 2001, and produced the first two radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He is one of the people credited with creating the panel game Mornington Crescent for I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. In December 2008 he posthumously received an Outstanding Contribution to Comedy Award.
Hamish and Dougal are two characters from the long-running BBC Radio 4 radio comedy panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, played by Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden, who later went on to have their own Radio 4 series, You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal. The series is occasionally broadcast on the BBC's repeat station, Radio 4 Extra.
Ghost is a written or spoken word game in which players take turns to extend the letters of a word without completing a valid word.
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Colin Sell is a British pianist who has appeared on the radio panel games Whose Line Is It Anyway? and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. He has become famous mostly for his long service on the latter show, where he is frequently the butt of the host's jokes about the supposedly poor quality of his playing.
Mornington Crescent is a street in the London Borough of Camden.
Josephine Mary Kendall was a British actress and writer. She was known for her work on the BBC radio comedy show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, which debuted in 1964, and for her role as Peggy Skilbeck on the ITV soap opera Emmerdale from 1972 to 1973, in which she also spoke the programme's first line of dialogue in the inaugural episode.
Denise Dorothy Coffey was an English actress, comedian, director and playwright.
Jon Naismith is a producer mainly known for his work on BBC Radio, primarily comedy, including You'll Have Had Your Tea, The Unbelievable Truth and About a Dog.
The Long Hot Satsuma is a radio comedy sketch show from 1989 featuring Graeme Garden, Barry Cryer, Alison Steadman, Paul B. Davies and Julia Hills. The show was produced by Dirk Maggs.
"Holiday" is an episode of the British comedy television series The Goodies.
Manifold was a mathematical magazine published at the University of Warwick. It was established in 1968. Its philosophy was "It is possible to be serious about mathematics, without being solemn." Its best known editor was the mathematician Ian Stewart who edited the magazine in the late 1960s.
Finchley Central is a mind game in which two players take turns naming stations in the London Underground. The first person to name Finchley Central is the winner. Of course, the first player could say "Finchley Central" straight away, but as mathematics professor Jonathan Partington notes,
An opening move of "Finchley Central" is too much of a cheat, and you might wish to start with, say, Liverpool Street, when, assuming that your opponent isn't rude enough to reply with Finchley Central, leaves you with a mate on your second move.
References
1 2 Elizabeth Knowles, ed. (2006). "Mornington Crescent". A Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Oxford University Press.
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