I’m here at work, snowed under with things I need to get done, when I discover I’ve got a copy of The Generation Game: Now and Then - which starts on UKTV Gold Thursday 22 November – tucked under a load of other stuff. Well, that’s it, I’m screwed, because I have to watch this. And from the off, my colleagues are interested too, keen to check out the reworked theme song which, I have to say, is ace. Bruce trilling away over an amped-up version of that familar theme. In short, they haven’t ruined it. (Shame about the boring ITV1-style logo and set, though).

And then the man himself takes to the stage. After the usual “Nice to see you” business, we get: “It’s so comforting to have an audience who can remember their lines. Let’s just hope I can remember mine! Well, it’s not easy when you’re 55″. Mocking laughter. “Oh, and a bit! And a bit!”

The clippage is admirably broad – there’s stuff in here from the ’90s run (when our host was experimenting disastrously with different hairpieces) as well as the classic ’70s stuff. And Brucie proves he’s still fantastic at being nicely insulting to members of the public (“35 years on and he still hasn’t got any better”, he quips about contestant Alan Ferguson, who reprises his attempted turn at ventriloquism). Plus Anthea Redfern provides some talking-head action (“I was just a hostess… Rosemary Ford was so talented”), before Ms Ford herself makes an appearance with Bruce (“Beauty and the Beast they used to call us,” he says, “which I always thought was a bit unfair on you”) for a spot of off-the-cuff hoofing and a turn on the potter’s wheel. 

And of course, there’s a conveyor-belt – a panini press, a luxury spa day for two, a drinks cooler fridge, a vacuum cleaner, a cuddly toy, an abdominal toning belt etc – which is inflicted on a contestant from the very first episode. From there, it’s time for the goodbyes, everyone stood in front of all the items won as is the law. 

“We’ll see you next time, be there!”. I can’t think of a nicer way to spend 30 minutes.

More interestingly, as revealed at their press launch this morning, they’re unveiled the next show for the Now and Thentreatment: The Generation Game.

“We’ll be giving it the UKTV Gold treament,” promised channel head James Newton, “revisiting games from the past, and creating new ones for today. And, even better than that, we’ve got Mr Generation Game himself, Bruce Forsyth to present it… We haven’t got anything to show you [today] because it’s literally hot off the press. Unfortunately, Brucie can’t be here with us, but he’s sent a few words all the way from Puerto Rico. He says, ‘I’m so looking forward to bringing back the wonderful memories and highlights of The Generation Game. It was always a good game, good game’.”

At the moment, it sounds like the format is up for grabs, with Newton unable to confirm how the new elements will mix with the old. But there it is. Should be fun.

It’s pretty clear they wanted to Strictly-fy the old format, but the brilliant thing about Strictly Come Dancing is that, for all the kitsch element, it’s played exactly straight, whereas Generation Fame was presented entirely in quotation marks and ironic glitter. They even roped in Bruno from Strictly Come Dancing to “choreograph” the contestants through the inevitable dance-off, but given that this turned out to be blokes in drag arseing about for two minutes, what was the point?

Graham Norton can truly be a dreadful host when he tries, here shrieking and corpsing at all his own “jokes” and taking the piss out of Belgians. The conveyor belt prizes turned out to be vaguely ironic gifts for members of the audience, enabling Graham to mock them in that inimitable style which peaked in about 2001. The hateful Johnny Vegas, bad sight of the week any time he turns up, lolled on to charmlessly bellow and shout his way through an interminable pottery game.

And yet … some of the games still had a bit of that old Gen Game magic, not least Harry Hill playing the theme from Animal Hospital on a load of car horns – essentially the exact same game as Larry Grayson in a chef’s hat played with a load of pots and pans all those years ago. The skipping game, and the bloke who painted upside down, essentially it could have all come from a Saturday night in 1978, proving again what a robust format this is.

But it was so slow, the game forever mired in Graham’s humourless meanderings, and his pointless interaction with the audience member who’d been plucked to keep the scores in a “funny” costume. Even at 77, Brucie CBE would still have made a better job of it. Graham, shut that door on your way out.