Bridge of Lies (BBC One) is not to be confused with Bridge of Spies, Steven Spielberg’s Cold War thriller. It is a daytime quiz show presented by Ross Kemp, and he doesn’t do a bad job of it. If Gordon Ramsay can try his hand at being
a quizmaster, I suppose everyone can have a bash.
Afternoon TV quizzes come and go – inexplicably, ITV’s Tipping Point is still with us – but this one could be
a keeper. It’s a genial addition to the afternoon schedule and passes two tests: the format is easy to grasp, and the questions are pitched at just the right level, which is to say that they’re not too tricky yet cover a sufficiently wide range of general knowledge and pop culture topics to include some that you’ll probably have to guess.
Initially, Kemp makes the rules sound complicated, but they’re not at all. Contestants have to make their way across a giant Blockbusters board projected onto the floor. It in no way resembles a bridge, which makes the show’s title fairly baffling. The “lies” are simply wrong answers. There is a path through the board made up of right answers, but step on three “lies” and you’re out.
It’s also a hodgepodge of bits from other programmes. The set appears to have been borrowed from The Jeremy Vine Show. Kemp speaks to The Bridge, just as Danny Dyer bellows at The Wall.
Kemp spends too much time talking to the contestants instead of getting on with the questions. The first lot were an enthusiastic bunch, all members of the same family. Unfortunately, one of them was Anita. She had the tendency, as my husband does when taking part in quizzes, to choose the wrong answer with conviction. She rejected the idea that “The Bard” was a nickname for Shakespeare. Fatally, the family took her at her word when she declared that Tony Blair was definitely not Prime Minister at the turn of the millennium.
The others were bright but with odd gaps in their knowledge. Pharmacist Sanj seemed smart yet had never heard the word “Thatcherite”. Perhaps she’s just young. Recently, a twentysomething colleague was astonished to learn that we once had to lick postage stamps.
