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Alan Carr’s Picture Slam is, as you might guess, is presented by comedian Alan Carr, and is 45 minutes of ‘guess the picture’, basically, e.g. guess the celeb, which TV show is this, what snack is this, and so on.
First off the bat, five minutes was wasted chatting to the constetants and finding out who they are and what their favourite inside leg measurement is.
When it comes to the tough questions, examples in your four-pack of guessing games include identifying the Paramount Plus logo, a Border Collie and… Liz Truss – who? She’s the former Prime Minister who lasted 49 days in office, thus coming second to a lettuce.
As for the title, a picture slam is when you get all four. Then, it goes to groups of five pictures (so, the Picture Slam becomes ‘four in a row’), followed by a minute of as many pictures as possible, as if they’re on a conveyor belt; then six pictures under a particular topic, the first being “Meat”, so there’s a meat link in there, eg. a picture of Larry Lamb… before, like Pointless, they swap over to the other contestant and go round again.
And then when they get down to the last two pairs, another 60-second picture round, but if someone gets it wrong, control passes over to the other team.
Finally, comes the Super Slam. The remaining pair will stand to win some cash on a 12-strong picture board, rather like a picture board in any gameshow where you have to answer all the questions in order to win the most money, although you’ll get some for 8 of these.
Along the way in this dross, one contestant has to guess a picture of a celeb as a child, and came out with “Amanda Holden”. Alan asks him, “How did you know it was her?”, to which comes the reply, “She looks like her(!)”
Yes, the barrel is being scraped big-time. It’s just incredible just how lame this gameshow concept is. There are a few wise-cracks from the usually reliable Mr Carr, but he can’t be risque around 6pm, and overall, Alan Carr’s Picture Slam does feel very empty.
Maybe they should’ve commissioned 3×3 with Lee Mack for a full series, instead?
Alan Carr’s Picture Slam begins on Saturday September 16th on BBC1 at 5.50pm, and is unlikely to be released onBlu-ray or DVD. After each episode, you can watch them on BBC iPlayer.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.