Vernon Kay

Joel Dommett forced to pull out of presenting Comic Relief after catching Covid

He has announced his replacement will be Vernon Kay.

Every version of Blockbusters there's ever been

As a new version of Blockbusters hosted by Dara O Briain arrives, we revisit the gameshow's previous incarnations...

Radio Times review

Another enjoyable meander through the gripes of the rich and famous. The temptation is for celebrity guests to overstate their bugbears. Are sliding doors truly "an abomination", Miles Jupp? Is there really "nothing worse" than people with limp handshakes, Kelly Hoppen? But Frank Skinner always has a nice way of either undercutting the grumbles or trumping them with a funnier observation of his own. ("Don't you find that litter can brighten an otherwise grey pavement?" he enquires of Vernon Kay.)

The host also has viral video clips at his fingertips that are worth the price of admission on their own: tonight, the classic moment when a sleeping commuter is swept aside by sliding train doors, plus a man doing the washing up overreacts to a shock from his daughter.

Dougie Colon's cod-Lancashire accent has not improved since the series started. This would be less of a problem if Tess Daly, on whose husband, Vernon Kay, Colon is surely modelled, wasn't one of the guests.

She's going head to head (well, perhaps not quite) with Ronan Keating in a battle that includes some of the livelier Puppet Show games. It's like a bizarre circus. See them strapped to a giant revolving glittery wheel! Watch as they race to blow out 100 candles! Laugh as they fail to name the Chancellor and the members of the G8!

As ever, the sideshow - the behind-the-scenes puppet soap which has a hint of human sadness about it - is just as diverting as the main event.

ITV clearly has big hopes for this reboot of the long-running celebrity home-invasion panel show. Both Vernon Kay and Paul O'Grady were reportedly in the running to spend their Saturday evenings rummaging through the drawers of the great, the good and the goadawful. Then ITV decided to split the difference, handing the task over to Leigh Francis's high-achieving alter-ego, gurning Northern malapropism-merchant Keith 'Ooosh!' Lemon.

And, love him, loathe him or remain in a state of semi-ignorant bafflement, Lemon is clearly in his element here, rifling through the pads of an Olympian (naturally), a couple of boy band refugees (jolly) and a former Deputy Prime Minister (oh, John...) while Dave Berry, Martine McCutcheon and Eamonn Holmes - who in the ITV-verse counts as a sage elder statesman - attempt to riddle out whose house is whose. In essence, it's a quizzed-up Cribs for crinklies.

Compared to much of the shiny-floored crunk that ITV (and, indeed, the BBC) has been pumping out of late, Through the Keyhole, or, as Keith has it Fruit'keyhole, is a fairly decent stab at bouncy Saturday evening fun. Decent enough, in fact, to make one wonder why it's been shunted back to 9.20 just to make room for a few F-bombs and other assorted bleeped out swears. This has got 7.30 - and therefore bigger ratings - written all over it.

Well, That Puppet Game Show (BBC1) was twice as good as the woeful I Love My Country. Which meant it was still pretty much pants, as the idea of having a bunch of crazy puppet characters hosting a quiz show made for an interminably long 40 minutes.

This was an uninspired retread of Sesame Street (I admit, I never really got why that was so popular) with a pretty bland host called Dougie Colon (Vernon Kay, only half as tall) tickling the egos of guests Jonathan Ross and Katherine Jenkins as they joshed and giggled their way through yawn-worthy challenges.

Backstage, the puppet types were caught up in some kind of showbiz drama that was equally lame.

It's all for charity, that great get-out card for throwing any old mud at the screen and hoping some of it will stick. The best character was a crabby crab called Clive, called upon to keep the scores, who looked as disgruntled at being there as I did watching this mess. When does Strictly start?

That Puppet Game Show (BBC1, Saturday) is yet another attempt to crack the Saturday evening family entertainment nut. That's Puppet, with a P, not with an M, though you could easily be mistaken; they share about 99% of their DNA with Kermit and co, and were made by the same company. But instead of a frog, this show is hosted by Dougie, a big-chinned fella with a hint of both Vernon Kay and Paddy McGuinness about him. And it's a game show. Two actual flesh'n'bone slebs (Jonathan Ross and Kathryn Jenkins, in the opener) compete against each other to win money for charidee.

Some of the games don't really work. Saucissong, for example - in which contestants have to remember which singing Scottish hotdog sang which bit of 500 Miles by the Proclaimers - quickly gets tedious. More about the name than the game, I'd say. Life's a Speech is better. It does all feel very 1987, but it's warm, funny at times, and the guests (so far) are game. It should become more interesting once you get to know the puppets' personalities a bit better. So far my favourite is an alcoholic armadillo called Ian.

Meet the new star of Saturday night TV - a puppet

He's got Brucie's chin and Vernon Kay's voice - it's Dougie Colon and he's ready to take over your Saturday nights with That Puppet Game Show.

Radio Times review

Cracking Saturday night family telly is tough, and bringing in puppets - even Jim Henson puppets - might seem like a last resort. But That Puppet Game Show, in which two celebrities vie for a £10,000 charity prize on a game show presented and staffed entirely by puppets, is no cheap'n'flimsy weekend whimsy. Each puppet, from host Dougie Colon (think Vernon Kay by way of Peter Kay) to softly spoken but ballsy show producer Mancie O'Neill, has a "personality" to go with their distinctively wide, smooth Henson mouths. The celebrities, this week Jonathan Ross and Katherine Jenkins, are game. And the challenges, which are facilitated by small, bendy frankfurters in clothes, are more than likely to raise a laugh from the average sofa.

That Puppet Game Show, BBC One review

All the things that made The Muppet Show so great have been half-heartedly copied in a cheapskate fashion and paraded like a bad tribute act. That Puppet Game Show's awfulness is epitomised by the presenter, a bland, chinless wonder called Dougie Colon (pronounced "Cologne" and voiced by Vernon Kay). Somewhere, a little green frog is burying his head in despair.