A completely Pointless experience

The dream was to get a pointless answer; the nightmare was ending up joining the dreaded ‘200 club’. Sheffield’s very own Steve Churchill tells us about his day out on Pointless.


Having watched the show religiously, all the while semi-arrogantly believing we had what it took to win the jackpot, or at least reach the final, my housemate, Ben, and I decided to apply to be on the BBC One game show Pointless. The application process started over a year before we were even on television. First was an extensive written application, followed by a mock episode with other prospective contestants, and finally a video audition for the show’s producers. After an agonising three-month wait we were relieved to be invited to be contestants; our shot at TV fame had finally come.

What’s the point?

We were whisked down to London to the BBC studios in Elstree last May on the 6 a.m. train from Sheffield, which was one of the most difficult tasks of the day given we were celebrating at the Activities Awards until the early hours the night before. First class seats would’ve made it easier, but alas we weren’t that important. We arrived at the studios and began to meet the other pairs of contestants in dribs and drabs, with that awkward sentiment of ‘Hi! It’s lovely to meet you. Good luck, but not too much!’

We were allocated to the second of the two shows filmed that day, so after we had discussed our outfits with wardrobe, had all the rules explained and various other formalities we were left to continue ‘bonding’ with the other contestants in a pseudo-sincere manner. Most of them were all very nice and quite interesting and ranged from couples, to mothers and daughters, to work-colleagues and of course us, the token pair of students. One of the other pairs appeared to work game shows like a circuit, they had been on Deal or No Deal, Eggheads and The Chase; they had won most of them too. We’d just identified our strongest opposition.

Before we knew it we were sitting in makeup being made beautiful for our big TV performance, not too much foundation though! We had our outfits picked for us and had our microphones affixed and were ushered to the studio ready for the moment we had been waiting for … meeting Alexander and Richard. Needless to say the only thing going through my head for the first few minutes was ‘How tall is Richard?’ He looked about 7 feet tall, still taller than me and I was on two high steps. So the two of them introduced themselves to us separately with an air of artificial TV charm. I wanted to believe they were genuinely nice guys, but I could just feel that it was very much a character they were playing. It is a job for them after all, compared to the once in a lifetime opportunity it was for us.

By this time the nerves were thoroughly settling in, with the audience and the studio lights on us; a part of me secretly wished I was back on the sofa, watching from the comfort of my own home. We had been told by the studio team that to get the most time on TV it was good to give reasons to your answers, making yourselves come across as interesting guys, which we did quite well in the first round. I was pretty chuffed as I got the lowest-scoring answer of the round, which is a good thing if you’re not familiar with the show – just like golf (but if you’ve never played golf that analogy won’t really help).

The second round was a different story, music was a strong subject, but unfortunately the question wasn’t what we would have wanted and we suffered an early exit. We were put up in one of Lenny Henry’s own Premier Inns for two nights (they had a random day off filming in between our shows) and returned to redeem ourselves with our second throw of the dice.

It’s pointless wearing your own clothes

We started with the same routine and unfortunately it ended with the same end result. We had our small talk with the contestants, our arbitrary re-welcomes from the show’s hosts, but this time we didn’t even make it past the first round. In fairness, literature was never one of my strong suits.

So we left the studios with our heads held high-ish and focussed on what an incredible experience it had been, although deep down I think we were both gutted that we didn’t give a better showing of ourselves. But, maybe most importantly, we managed to avoid joining the dreaded ‘200 club’.

So next time you sit down to watch a game show and find yourself yelling at contestants when they don’t know something that seems blindingly obvious, let me tell you now, it’s a whole different story under the lights and pressure of a TV studio, than stretched out on a sofa with a nice cup of tea.