Play to the Whistle

Play to the Whistle
Genre Comedy panel game
Presented by Holly Willoughby
Starring Bradley Walsh
Frank Lampard
Romesh Ranganathan
Seann Walsh
Jimmy Bullard (2015)
Country of origin United Kingdom
Original language(s) English
No. of series 2
No. of episodes 9 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s) Dan Baldwin
Location(s) Fountain Studios
Running time 45 minutes (inc. adverts)
Production company(s) Hungry Bear Media
Release
Original network ITV, STV, UTV
Picture format 16:9 (HDTV)
Original release 11 April 2015 (2015-04-11) – present

Play to the Whistle is a British comedy panel game show that airs on ITV. It was first episode broadcast on 11 April 2015. In each episode two teams of three compete in sports knowledge rounds and physical games to achieve points for their teams, at the end the team with the most points is declared the winner.

The show is hosted by Holly Willoughby. One team is captained by entertainer, actor and presenter Bradley Walsh and the other team is captained by professional footballer Frank Lampard. Lampard is joined by comedian Romesh Ranganathan as a regular panellist. Seann Walsh, also a comedian, is the resident scorer. Former professional footballer Jimmy Bullard was the host's assistant in the first series.[1]

Production

The show was commissioned as part of ITV's endeavour to find a panel show for their flagship channel after other pilot series have aired. The show is made by Hungry Bear Media and the executive producer is Dan Baldwin, Holly Willoughby's husband. Despite the sport theme, ITV say that they are not targeting sports fans specifically but producing the show for the whole family audience. Baldwin stated that the host's lack of sports knowledge "will help viewers in the same position". Filming of each episode takes place at the Fountain Studios in Wembley in front of a live studio audience. The first two episodes of the first series were recorded on 31 March 2015, the next two on 20 April, one on 27 April and the final two on 3 May.[1] It was revealed in November 2015 that ITV had ordered a second seires.[2] Episodes for this series were recorded on 8 January, 15 January and 17 January 2016 with 2 episodes being recorded each day.

The show's title comes from the phrase used in football where players should continue with the game, despite thinking an incident has taken place to stop it, until the referee has blown his whistle to halt play.[3] In the show it is when Willoughby blows her whistle that the rounds are concluded.

The animations used on the opening titles and the round names are produced by Dave Whyte Animation Ltd.

Episodes

The coloured backgrounds denote the result of each episode:

     indicates Bradley's team won
     indicates Frank and Romesh's team won
     indicates the game ended in a draw

Series 1 (2015)

The first series of Play to the Whistle began airing on 11 April 2015.

No. Episode First broadcast Bradley's guests Frank and Romesh's guests Scores Ratings[4]
1
 1x01 11 April 2015 Rob Beckett
Peter Crouch		 Paddy McGuinness 8–7 2.79
2
 1x02 18 April 2015 Sean Lock
Alex Scott		 Graeme Swann 8–10 2.27
3
 1x03 25 April 2015 Alex Brooker
Piers Morgan		 Harry Redknapp 8–9 2.03
4
 1x04 2 May 2015 Christine Bleakley
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain		 Dermot O'Leary 7–5 2.31
5
 1x05 9 May 2015 Carl Fogarty
Jon Richardson		 Niall Horan 8–8 2.41
6
 1x06 16 May 2015 Jonathan Ross
Brooke Vincent		 Tony McCoy −3–9 2.11
7
 1x07 23 May 2015 Natalie Anderson
Bob Mortimer		 Pat Cash 8–8 N/A
8
 1x08 6 June 2015 Compilation episode N/A N/A

Series 2 (2016)

A second series of Play to the Whistle began airing on 16 April 2016.[2]

No. Episode First broadcast Bradley's guests Frank and Romesh's guests Scores Ratings[4]
9
 2x01 16 April 2016 Rob Beckett
Tom Daley		 Richard Osman 6–9 2.71
10
 2x02 23 April 2016[5] Anthony Joshua
Jon Richardson		 Kevin Bridges 6–5
11
 2x03 30 April 2016[6] Chris Kamara
Jack P. Shepherd		 Jonathan Ross 7–5
12
 2x04 7 May 2016[7] Rochelle Humes
Funmbi Omotayo		 Wilfried Zaha
?
 2x?? TBC Danny Cipriani
Katherine Ryan		 Piers Morgan[8]

References

  1. 1 2 "Holly Willoughby to host new ITV panel show". British Comedy Guide. 26 March 2015. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  2. 1 2 "ITV order Series 2 of Play To The Whistle". British Comedy Guide. 18 November 2015. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
  3. ↑ "Weekly Football Phrase: To Play to the Whistle". languagecaster.com. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
  4. 1 2 http://www.barb.co.uk/viewing-data/weekly-top-30/
  5. ↑ "Series 2 - Episode 2". Radio Times. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  6. ↑ "Series 2 - Episode 3". Radio Times. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
  7. ↑
  8. ↑ Cipriani, Danny (8 January 2016). "Had a great time on play to the whistle...". Twitter. Retrieved 15 January 2016.

External links

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