A League of Their Own is a sports-based comedy panel game that was first broadcast on Sky
1 on 11 March 2010.
It is hosted by Gavin and Stacey star James Corden and features Andrew Flintoff and Jamie
Redknapp as team captains.
John Bishop and Georgie Thompson were regular panellists for the first four series alongside
two weekly guests.
Jack Whitehall joined the cast as a regular panellist from the fifth series onwards.
On 23 April 2014, Sky announced that they have signed a three-year contract deal, which
will see the show on the air until 2017.
They have confirmed via their Twitter page that the brand new series will start on 29
August 2014.
Format The show is a standard panel quiz show where
two teams of three, the Red and Blue teams compete for points awarded in three rounds,
to find the overall winning team by points total.
Round 1 involves both teams having to rank three different sportspersons according to
a specific criterion.
Round 2, Guest List, involves both teams having to guess the answers given by a sportsperson
about his or her sport.
Round 3, Human Clock, sees two members of each team have to answer questions for as
long as the third team member can sustain a physical challenge in the studio.
The general format has remained the same but with some variations in more recent series.
Series 5 featured the "Visa Sprint Challenge" to celebrate the upcoming Olympics.
If the studio guest was an active professional athlete there was usually an additional physical
challenge or game based on his or her sport.
Participants The show is hosted by James Corden, a comedy
writer best known for co-writing and starring in Gavin & Stacey.
The Red Team is captained by retired footballer Jamie Redknapp, who is joined by regular panellist
and stand up comedian John Bishop.
The Blue Team is captained by retired England cricketer Andrew Flintoff, joined by regular
panellist and Sky Sports F1 presenter Georgie Thompson.
As of series 5, comedian Jack Whitehall has replaced Georgie Thompson as regular panellist
on the blue team due to Georgie's F1 commitments.
In series 5, John Bishop was absent for several episodes due to his Sport Relief challenge.
Each week the teams are supplemented by one special guest.
Neither Corden, Redknapp nor Thompson had been regular features on a television panel
show before.
Corden was non-committal about whether the show marked a new direction for him as a television
host, stating "I spend most of my time sitting in a room with my mates talking about sport
anyway.
To get paid to do such a thing will be great.
I hope it will be a fun show and people will enjoy watching it."
Redknapp said "I'm loving it, but it is nerve-wracking" and "the key is to try to have a bit of fun,
but to remember that we're not comedians and can't compete with the professionals" referring
to Bishop and Corden.
Thompson said of the show that it was "the fun factor that I've been looking for" and
represented an "exciting opportunity" in her career.
Production The show was created by Paul Brassey, a development
producer at CPL Productions.
The show was recorded in Pinewood Studios, being filmed on Mondays and Tuesdays in front
of a live studio audience.
The show was commissioned by Duncan Gray, with Gray, Danielle Lux and Murray Boland
acting as Executive Producers.
It was announced on 20 October 2009 that the pilot for the show would be hosted by Corden
alongside team captains Redknapp and England cricketer Stuart Broad, although Broad was
replaced in the line up by Flintoff by the time of the series 1 start.
Executive producer Danielle Lux said it would be "an Olympic standard comedy show for anyone
who loves their sport and a fun-filled half-hour for those who don't."
The pilot was recorded on 24 October, and was due to be aired later in 2009.
Sky1's promotion for the show included a TV advert featuring Corden mis-kicking a football,
spoofing contemporary serious sportswear advertising campaigns, accompanied by the tagline "the
new panel show that doesn't take sport too seriously".
Reception Keith Watson of the Metro welcomed the show
as a challenger to "Britain's No.1 TV sports spot-the-scripted-bits banter show", referring
to the BBC's show A Question of Sport, hosted by Sue Barker.
Watson, writing after the first episode, said "Team skippers Freddie Flintoff and Jamie
Redknapp are just there as window-dressing/butts of jokes, for this is Corden's show and he
takes to it like a puck to the ice rink.
[Sue] Barker beware."
Sharon Lougher and Larushka Ivan-Zadeh also of the Metro went further, announcing the
show as "basically, A Question of Sport for idiots ... the televisual equivalent of Nuts
magazine".
Writing after the first episode, Harry Venning of The Stage panned the show, summarising
it as "Imagine A Question of Sport without the sports questions, combined with They Think
It's All Over without the comedy".
Criticising the length of the opening hour long special, Venning said it contained some
fine gags but not enough of them, and the format was "dull, unimaginative and painfully
protracted", albeit praising Flintoff for being "surprisingly witty and charming".
The British Comedy Guide said of the first episode that "the sportsman-dominated panel
showed: very few laughs, and little charm" and were not convinced of the format, although
conceding that not being sports fans they might not be the target audience.
Guest appearances
The following have made an appearance on the show as a guest:
a.
^ Appearances made from series 5 onwards, when Bishop and Thompson were no longer a
regular panellist.b.
^ Appearances made before Whitehall became a regular panellist.c.
^ One of their appearances was as a guest team captain.
Transmissions
Original series Specials
Australian version An Australian version of A League of Their
Own aired on Network Ten on 16 September 2013.
It was presented by comedian Tommy Little and the captains were tennis star Pat Cash
and swimmer Eamon Sullivan.
The series had ten episodes.
Nine episodes were broadcast with the tenth episode being viewed online after it was cancelled
to immediate effect after posting a disappointing rating in the show's ninth week.
References
External links Official website
A League of Their Own at TV.com A League of Their Own at UKGameshows.com
A League of Their Own at the British Comedy Guide
A League of Their Own at the Internet Movie Database
A League of Their Own Online Game