That didn’t work as there were too many people in the studio and the games were basic and only enjoyable if you were in the studio. With more tv audience interaction (other than holding the pink lottery ticket in front of them during the draws) it may have stood a small chance of working.

That said, having the voice of darts Sid Wadell doing the lottery draw voiceover for a couple of weeks before being replaced by Alan Dedicote was in my opinion an the only idea of genius, in a pool of lame ideas.

What a surprise, but Norton faced a uphill struggle to make this work. I strongly believe there were two overideing factors at work here – and one of the kneecappers of its lack of sucess was forged over 10 years ago.

Totally Saturday is a quick paced mix of mini-formats – but without a hook other than the umbrella of the show to make anything stick it actually resembles less of a format and more of a collection of random ideas all linked by one man.
Plus, any show these days that goes for this approach reminds viewers of the slow televised death of Noels House Party.

Ant and Dec just about got away with it because in the early series of ‘Takeaway’ they played the ‘win the ads’ show finale feature very strongly and hung the rest of the features around the show to build upto it. That isn’t present in any part of
TS and although the holiday game is the show stopper feature – it’s barely mentioned during the show by Norton.
The inconsistancy from show to show is glaring. One week the headling music act closes the show, next week it’s the theme and credit roll. It’s as though the main selling point (the music guest) was dropped because the rest of the throwaway rubbish overan. Oh yeah, and if the Hampsters wheel game was done as an ironic satire of the past features of Saturday night telly of old, then it would have been amusing. But its not – and as a result it looks childish, under developed and worse, unfunny.

The other one problem is partly Norton (but not directly) himself and delusion from the BBC.

Somewhere along the line someone at TVC must have thought that we was ready for primetime Saturday Night because of his three previous outings in the same slot with the Find a West End Star trilogy.
However, on that show he was basically an autocue reading drone with only small interaction with the studio audience and more between Lord Lloyd-Webber and judges panel and with the singers which was crafted during the rehersals.
Plus it wasn’t a format built around Norton – finding the star was the selling point, not Graham being the star.

In TS it’s all about him and appears on screen to be on the hoof, and although I don’t doubt that the production team haven’t thought of all avenues when an sting on a viewers is aired, he does look slightly worried it’s all going to crash around his ears.
Presenting a nice line in studio audience ambush embarrasment and making ad-lib knob and dildo jokes to middle aged female celebs and actresses on his late night chatshow is not problem, and is what he is brilliant at, but you can see the pressure of being the face of shinyfloor prime time family viewing Saturday Night BBC One.

No wonder it’s all quickly unravelled piece by piece. Norton deserves better. Saturday Night is not the place to find it.

There are no new formats etc etc. But which dormant formats to revive? The Game For a Laugh-style shows are the future right now as BBC1 and ITV1 both apparently have up-coming hidden camera shows (Five even reportedly planning to revive GFAL itself).

ITV also expected to do a Surprise Surprise-type show with Cheryl Cole. Whither Cilla? Would have been heartwarming, recession TV to get her hosting a revived Surprise.