“Do I play woofter?”

Last week, Kate Richardson nabbed Countdown infamy with a dodgy seven-letter word. Read more

Countdown

Letters, prey?

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Countdown

Countdown returns on Monday, C4, with its all-new presenting team – Jeff Stelling (“Stelling is the name -  six consonants, two vowels”) at the desk, and the very smiley Rachel Riley wrangling the letters and numbers.

We’ll have a full review from our Countdown correspondent Ian Jones, but – briefly – how’s the relaunched show looking? Read more

Countdown

Do not go gentle into that good night…
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Jeff’s spelling?

Is Jeff Stelling really going to inherit the Countdown presenter’s chair from Des O’ Connor? Read more

Countdone?

Bloody hell. Des O’Connor’s quitting Countdown!

Countdown

From early incarnation as embarrassing great uncle to latterday guise as sassy grandmother, the status of Countdown in the Channel 4 family has always been at odds with that of the clan as a whole. Read more

Sez Des

C4 are circulating a Des O’Connor interview to promote his turn in the Countdown chair. Here’s the relevant bit… Read more

“We’ve got Carol Vorderman in here tonight!”

He’s no stranger to inheriting other people’s quiz shows, having stepped into the dapper shoes of Michael Miles for the 1990s revival of Take Your Pick. But does Des O’Connor have enough sartorial know-how to slip into the capricious cloak of Richard Whiteley, especially after his titular namesake found it impossible to wear such a garment for a little over 12 months? Read more

Countdown

By the look on Des’ face, you’d have thought someone had died. But no, it was just Countdown‘s 24th birthday, and as usual our man was doing his best to grace the occasion with a crisply-executed ill-suited response. Read more

Count down south

The power and possibly the ego of Des Lynam seems to have surfaced, and as of next year his only current television show, Countdown, is relocating from its Leeds studios to “somewhere near the M25″ because he is apparently fed up of having to travel up to Yorkshire for a week once a month to record the programme. This 400 mile taxing routine seems to be all too much for poor Des according to certain newspapers. Read more

Countdown

It had long become the case that you could tell exactly what type of Countdown was on the cards by the precise kind of fanciful countenance struck by Richard Whiteley in the show’s opening seconds. Read more

Countdown

Several months after OTT ruefully predicted Countdown was on its way out, Channel 4 promptly recommissioned the series to run for another five years. Read more

Countdown

It’s a pity Channel 4 seem to have forgotten that the best way to get shot of a listless, ageing programme is to dispatch it, cleanly and coldly, with one swift blow. Read more

Countdown

On the occasion of Channel 4′s 20th birthday, but with a moratorium on anything remotely resembling joviality apparently in place across the network, it was a relief that Richard Whiteley for one was able to wriggle free of the company hairshirt. Read more

Countdown

“No, the world hasn’t gone mad – it’s quarter past four!” And so, with twinkling eyes and a voice brimming with scarcely-concealed merriment, Richard Whiteley – the Mr Bumble of Channel 4 – opened another series of Countdown. Read more

Countdown

“Words and numbers game”. That’s how this programme is famously often described by the Radio Times – just four simple words. A laughably concise billing, but what more needs to be said? Or rather, what else could be said that does justice to every painful pun, accidental gaffe or memorably pointless incident that makes up your average edition of Countdown? Read more