Good game, good game! How Bruce Forsyth revolutionised Saturday night TV
Christmas Day 1977 was the greatest battle in the British TV ratings war. BBC1 claimed a comprehensive victory, with Eric and Ernie pulling in 28.7 million for their last BBC show - but the job of building that historic audience had begun earlier that evening, when 24.4 million tuned in to watch Bruce Forsyth adopt the pose of Rodin’s Thinker and kick off the <Generation Game>.
Television is now so full of punters (and celebrities) attempting tasks outside their ken that it’s hard to grasp what a revolution Bruce Forsyth and The Generation Game, to use its full original title, was at the time. Four teams of two family members being shown how to throw pots by a potter or knives by a magician. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things, often badly. There was none of the nonchalance displayed by so many now. These people were understandably nervous, and they needed guidance.
They got exactly what they needed from Brucie. A good pianist, excellent dancer and frustrated crooner, Forsyth was also naturally funny; few grasped the mechanics of the gameshow form better than him.
Like so many of his generation, he learned his stagecraft at the Windmill Theatre. He was the only turn to get his name on the board of famous alumni while he was still performing there, such was Vivian Van Damm’s regard for his talents. However, VD’s faith had not been quite enough to propel Forsyth to stardom. By the end of the Fifties, he was considering giving up show business, to the point of joking about opening a tobacconist’s shop, as retired footballers tended to in those days.
His big break came in 1958 when ATV’s Brian Tesler plucked him from summer season obscurity in Babbacombe to appear on a variety show called New Look.
The moment Tesler’s boss, Val Parnell saw Forsyth, he realised he had the perfect man to replace Tommy Trinder as host of <Sunday Night at the London Palladium>. For the next decade or so, Forsyth remained very firmly an ITV turn. The big switch came in 1971, when BBC TV head of light entertainment, Bill Cotton Jr bought a Dutch game show format and knew who he wanted as host. Brucie initially tried to sell ‘Young Bill’ his idea for a chat show, but once he saw the Dutch tape, he saw the potential and said yes.
Dashing, beaky and manic, Forsyth moved the contestants around like chess pieces, or even cattle, making sure they were on their marks and facing the right way. The director was in the gallery, but the host was giving wordless direction all the time. Forsyth maintained a furious pace, with more than a hint of Fawltyesque menace.
It was menace without malice, though. On The Generation Game, Forsyth was sarcastic but never snide. He wanted these people to do well to the point of prompting them relentlessly on the conveyor belt finale, but reserved the right to take the rise mercilessly when they cocked it up. And he was never above undermining his own authority for a gag. His gleeful comic disdain and impatience meant that camera operators and directors had to be on the ball, capturing cut-away close-ups of eye rolling and grimacing.
These expressions were part of Forsyth’s conspiracy with the audience. Later, on LWT’s Play Your Cards Right, he regularly began by telling the studio audience they were “so much better than last week”. This was an in-joke with them, as two shows were recorded at each session, meaning that they <were> the previous week’s audience. Viewers at home soon cottoned on to why this line got such a big laugh.
Forsyth’s pre-eminence in the 1970s led Michael Grade at LWT to believe that Forsyth could break the BBC’s dominance of Saturday night TV. Sadly, Bruce Forsyth’s Big Night was a well-publicised disaster, and a rare misfire in a long career. The trouble was that the show tried to be too many things without anyone really knowing what it was. Even the mighty Forsyth couldn’t carry that burden.
He bounced back. Almost by way of apology for carrying the can over Big Night, LWT flew Sammy Davis Jr over for a one-off two man show, showcasing Forsyth’s many talents. Play Your Cards Right ran for years, he revived Generation Game at the BBC, and then in 2004 came Strictly Come Dancing.
Over 30 years since that storming Christmas - and 70 years after his first TV appearance, from Alexandra Palace as a boy tap dancer - Forsyth was still in the Christmas top 10. He ended his long career still at the top, something that can be claimed by very few entertainers.
