A Word In Your Era - remember that?

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone else remembers A Word In Your Era hosted by Rory McGrath? It was on BBC2 in the early 1990s and I seem to remember it being fairly good (depending on who was on it), but it's almost as if it never existed... It doesn't appear anywhere on this site for example and I've never met another person who remembers it... Spooky.

Please let me know if anyone else remembers it, and even better, if anyone knows how to get hold of it again - otherwise I'll just assume I'm crazy and go back to polishing my mushrooms.

Cheers!

It does sound very familiar. I'm fairly certain I watched it.
Was it really as long ago as early '90s?

What was it? A game show?

Sounds like a nostalgia panel show with 25 year old comedians waxing lyrical about adverts TV and football matches before they were born.

"The correct answers were Ron Greenwood, Spangles and Sapphire and Steel; 30 points to Stu Short-trousers."

It was a game show type format where each week a different group of comedians would be guests.

They would dress up and be a famous person from history for the duration of the show and compete in various stand-up style games to justify their place in history.

The aim for the guests was to convince the audience that their chosen person deserved a place in history above the others.

Guests that I can remember included peeps like Tony Hawks (did a very good Caligula) Craig Ferguson (John Knox, Rasputin), Josie Lawrence (Cleopatra) and various others.. I think some of the Absolutely folk were on it but can't remember much else.. Tony Slattery was Lassie at one point, bizarrely.

Is it ringing anybody's bells?

Craig Ferguson, we don't see him much nowadays.

I believe he earns loads of dosh as a very oily and unfunny US chat show host.

Looks like it only managed one eight episode series in 1992.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1062212/

The name did ring a bell but I don't recall ever watching it. Helen Lederer was a regular it would appear.

One synopsis I found said "Just-for-laughs debating game where three comedians dress up as characters from history and deliver a justification as to why they are the best. Possibly some kind of audience vote at the end to determine a winner.

Why Tony Slattery decided to dress up as Lassie, we'll gloss over."

I've just been tracking down the name of this show because a stand-out TV moment for me was the first time I ever saw Steve Coogan, playing Casanova on this show. It was very funny indeed, but doesn't seem to be available on YouTube. If anyone knows how to access the show or the Coogan clip, I'd love to find out.

I vaguely remember watching that. It was decent enough, depending on the guests.

There are some details on the Babycow website

http://www.babycow.co.uk/?portfolio=a-word-in-your-era

That's Alan Cumming in the last photo

http://www.alancumming.com/done.php?id=63

Quote: Tim Azure @ September 19 2013, 12:37 PM BST

Apparently in those days they thought silly game shows made cheap TV...

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As opposed to today where they think, Oh, Wait.

Quote: Ellie McCulloch @ June 24 2010, 5:25 PM BST

Just wondering if anyone else remembers A Word In Your Era hosted by Rory McGrath?

View original

I don't remember this whatsoever.

And I am Rory McGrath.