Fans of Letters & Numbers were left shocked and disappointed at the recent announcement that the show was no longer being produced – or as SBS put it – “Rested”.
But fear not – replays of Letters and Numbers are airing on SBS ONE, at 3pm weekdays. Continue reading »
Aired SBS ONE, at 6pm Thursday April 12, 2012.
Repeated 3pm SBS ONE Thursday April 19. Episode now online at sbs.com.au/lettersandnumbers
Story up later.
Mathew and Ben go into make up before the first show starts its recording. We hear that, if Mathew wins, then he will play Steve in the second show. If Ben wins, and thereby becomes a retiring champion, Bonnie will play Steve in the second show, then I play the winner in the third, followed by Jane for Thursday’s show. If Ben does not win, the order is Steve plays Mathew, then Jane the winner of that game, then me, then Bonnie.
With the possible scenario of Ben becoming a retiring champion, and there needing to be two new contestants for the second show – the one that ended up airing April 10 – there is a sixth contestant for the week, who lives around the corner, on stand by. It is standard procedure to have at least one on standby who can attend at a moments’ notice in the event of a contestant shortfall.
As Ben and Mathew take their seats, us remaining contestants make up the rather small audience. It is basically us, the warm up guy and a number of crew. Bonnie, with the possibility of playing the second show, goes off to make up. When she returns, I find find myself comparing solutions with her during the first game.
The first game ends – Mathew wins, Ben loses so does not become a retiring champion, but still was there for six nights nevertheless. This is the show that aired Monday April 9. Although we were not told the air date yet for the shows being recorded, the reference to Easter at the end of the show gave it away that the show would air Easter Monday, 2012. Bonnie and I then realise than there is the chance we could be playing each other in a later show so stop comparing notes.
It took close to an hour to record the first show. Of notable interest is the number of takes David Astle needs to get through his word stories that play after the ad break after the first round. He’s say his lines, then stuff up, then swear… and repeat. When Lily is displaying the word solutions, each of the words you see on the show are placed and recorded sometimes a few minutes apart.
Richard Morecroft himself makes blunders. Check out the Letters & Numbers blooper real here.
Scottish born Steve takes out Mathew on Tuesdays’ show. The audience for both the Tuesday and Wednesday show was made up of grade 5 and 6 students from a local primary school. They are entertained in between takes by the warm up guy, and have the chance to answer letters & numbers solutions. They also had the opportunity to ask Lily, David and Richard questions.
Ever wondered what happens to the paper Lily writes her solutions on? Well, they are signed by Lily and given to schools as souvenirs. The sheets come in large rolls, and apparently are quite expensive. Lily, by the way, sits down whenever she is not on camera.
On Wednesday’s show, Jane takes on Steve. During this show, I get taken to make up, and have a good chat about TV with the make up lady. We both share our thoughts on channel Nine in particular. The subject of Nine came up when we were talking about game shows and bad formats – namely Hot Seat.
I end up catching the end of Wednesday’s show, to see Jane wins.
So there it is – it’s me versus Jane for the Thursday show – with an air date of April 12, 2012.
We go off to a lunch break. After each show is recorded, the contestants who have finished are sent off home straight away. With just two shows to go for the day, it is myself, Bonnie and Jane remaining. Bonnie, who came from country Victoria, has her partner with her for support.
At the ABC canteen, we are entitled to a free meal. Jane says she is quite nervous, despite already recording one show. I wished her luck in our show and said she had nothing to worry about. After eating, Jane disappears, while I go back to out holding room and practice more Letters & Numbers from the books. I get told I should be relaxing, rather than trying to do more.
At this stage, with minutes to go before my show, I feel a small degree of nerves. Fact is, if you can;t do it now, you never will be able to, and no amount of practicing form the book at the last minute will help!
Next part – Part 6 – Andrew B on Letters and Numbers. Up tonight, after the show airs.
Next morning, I was told to share the can to the studios with another contestant also staying in the same hotel – Jane. We met in the foyer at 7.30am, then made our way to the studios. We talked about how we play Letters & Numbers at home, how we do and the like. It was then I found out she was a champion scrabble player.
You may think Scrabble champions have an upper hand in the letters side of Letters and Numbers, but it can come as a disadvantage – as scrabble allows so many more words than Letters & Numbers do – which, of course, are words in the Macquarie dictionary. For example Scrabble has words that feature a “Q” with no “U”, but in reality, you’d be hard pressed finding such a word in the dictionary.
If you have ever looked at the latest book of what words are allowed in scrabble, then you would see straight away there are many words that simply can’t even be pronounced, let alone be assigned a meaning in the dictionary.
That aside, we arrived at the studios around 8am, and met fellow contestants Mathew, Steve and Bonnie. Soon after the five of us – the five new contestants for the week – got to know each other, in walks Ben – a five night champion, about to take on one of us for his 6th and final night.
Having all seen the show, and how good you have to be to make it to 6 nights, none of us wanted to take on Ben on his 6th night.
We then met Gillian in person – the contestant coordinator. She took us to a holding room. She briefed us all, and told us to relax and have fun. The message was not to stress out, and to take it easy. Don’t worry about only getting a five letter word for example. She gave alot of positive reinforcement, and said the contestants that fail are those that go in thinking they will fail.
Those that go in and have fun, and believe they will do well, will do well. Despite all that, its not hard to avoid the nerves of going onto TV.
It all hits home when they take you into the studio. On the way, we pass Lily in her dressing gown, and host Richard going into his dressing room. He is smiling, as always.
All five of us the new contestants are given a trial in sitting in the contestants seats, and answering standard Letters & Numbers questions. Spoiler alert: the conundrum during this rehearsal is”REHEARSAL”!
It is decided that Mathew will play first against Ben. Letters and Numbers records five shows in a day – a whole week worth of TV, done in one day. This is quite common for weekly half hour game shows. Each half hour show takes around an hour to record, with between 15-30 minutes between episodes and a one hour lunch break between the third and the fourth episode.
The five shows fit roughly into a normal 9am-5pm working day.
Having never heard anything from my first audition, I decided to audition again in July 2011.
In November 2011, I received the call to attend the show.
If you live outside of Melbourne, SBS pays for your flight there to take part in the show. While you have to make your own way to the airport in your own city, they do cover your transport from Melbourne airport to the hotel you stay in the night before the show, then to ABC studios, and back to the airport after recording.
You are told to bring a number of changes of clothing. You must assume the possibility of becoming carry-over champion an being on for more than one show.
As I work in Sydney in a suburb not too far from the airport, I caught a train straight from work to Sydney airport. It was a Wednesday night late in November. With all four Letters & Numbers books on hand – yes – Alicia and I play the boos as well as the show – I used most of my time during the train trip, the wait at the airport and the one hour flight practicing Letters & Numbers.
My flight down – originally scheduled for 7pm was delayed well over an hour. It left Sydney around 8.30pm. By the time I landed in Melbourne, it was after 10pm, then not until 11pm when I arrived in the hotel. With nothing open to eat in the area (lucky I pigged out on snacks at the airport) I turned on the TV, flicked around, before realising there was nothing to watch anyway at that time, so the TV ended up on ABC News 24.
A few more practice rounds from the books, then to sleep soon after midnight. The hotel was brand new, having only been open for a few weeks.
When Letters & Numbers first premiered on SBS ONE, I couldn’t wait to play the game. We would record the show each night, so we could play later once our two children were asleep. Attempting to play while the kids were around – a 1 and 4 year old at the time – was impossible!
In playing back, soon after the kids were in bed, my wife – Alicia B and I – had pen and paper on hand and gave ourselves unlimited time to answer each of the rounds. At first, Alicia hated the show – but within days, it grew on her – to the point where playing Letters & Numbers became a regular part of our nights.
We found, however, while giving ourselves unlimited time to answer each of the rounds allowed us to usually get the longest words, and usually find a solution to the numbers rounds, playing the show was taking up a long time each night, eating into time to watch other shows.
We soon realised, the only way to do the show, was to allow the same 30 seconds that contestants have to give a solution to each round.
Alicia and I started scoring ourselves, the same way it is done on the show. At first, I would win most of the numbers rounds, but as Alicia got used to the game, she soon caught up. Alicia would usually find the longer words in the beginning, but, as I got used to playing the game, I caught up there too.
Now, over four seasons and more than 400 episodes in, we come very close to each other. We both have our good and bad nights. Alicia wins sometimes, I win sometimes. We have ties as well. Both of us are not that good at conundrums!
Late 2010, a new round of auditions were held in Sydney. Alicia decided to attend, and have a crack at playing the show for real.
Soon after, she received the call to be part of the show.
Letters & Numbers s recorded in Melbourne, at the ABC studios on Gordon St. The show uses the same studio as Spicks and Specks used to, as well as other popular ABC shows made in Melbourne.
Alicia’s show was record in February 2011, and aired May 10, 2011. She played against a contestant called Andre (yep – Andrew without the “w”!) who went on to be a six night champion. She, at the time, had the highest losing score ever on the show – at 53 points. That episode was one of the best of season two.
When Letters & Numbers first premiered on SBS ONE, I couldn’t wait to play the game. We would record the show each night, so we could play later once our two children were asleep. Attempting to play while the kids were around – a 1 and 4 year old at the time – was impossible!
In playing back, soon after the kids were in bed, my wife – Alicia B and I – had pen and paper on hand and gave ourselves unlimited time to answer each of the rounds. At first, Alicia hated the show – but within days, it grew on her – to the point where playing Letters & Numbers became a regular part of our nights.
We found, however, while giving ourselves unlimited time to answer each of the rounds allowed us to usually get the longest words, and usually find a solution to the numbers rounds, playing the show was taking up a long time each night, eating into time to watch other shows.
We soon realised, the only way to do the show, was to allow the same 30 seconds that contestants have to give a solution to each round.
Alicia and I started scoring ourselves, the same way it is done on the show. At first, I would win most of the numbers rounds, but as Alicia got used to the game, she soon caught up. Alicia would usually find the longer words in the beginning, but, as I got used to playing the game, I caught up there too.
Now, over four seasons and more than 400 episodes in, we come very close to each other. We both have our good and bad nights. Alicia wins sometimes, I win sometimes. We have ties as well. Both of us are not that good at conundrums!
Late 2010, a new round of auditions were held in Sydney. Alicia decided to attend, and have a crack at playing the show for real.
Soon after, she received the call to be part of the show.
Letters & Numbers s recorded in Melbourne, at the ABC studios on Gordon St. The show uses the same studio as Spicks and Specks used to, as well as other popular ABC shows made in Melbourne.
Alicia’s show was record in February 2011, and aired May 10, 2011. She played against a contestant called Andre (yep – Andrew without the “w”!) who went on to be a six night champion. She, at the time, had the highest losing score ever on the show – at 53 points. That episode was one of the best of season two.
This is the first of a six part series, leading up to Andrew B appearing as a contestant on Letters & Numbers Thursday April 12, 2012.
Letters and Numbers, SBS ONE, 6.00pm
See Throng writer Andrew B as a contestant tonight on Letters & Numbers, taking on last night’s winner Jane from South Australia. Letters & Numbers features 5 letters round, 3 numbers rounds and 1 conundrum at the end. How did Andrew B do? Tune in to find out!
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Last Friday night, Letters & Numbers on SBS ONE reached the end of is fourth season with the fourth Grand Final won by Sam (pictured).
This week, the game show has moved into its fifth season. This season will include myself Andrew B appearing as a contestant on Thursday April 12.
Alicia B appeared as a contestant on the show last year on May 10 – early in the second season.
The show has evolved over its four seasons to become more entertaining with contestants giving names to each of the number mixes they choose (Classroom mix, family mix, etc) – details can be found on their website: www.sbs.com.au/lettersandnumbers
The UK version called Countdown – now it its 66th season – features alot more letters games than ours does, and is nowhere near as enjoyable to watch. Having said that though, reaching 66 seasons is quite remarkable.
Letters & Numbers was originally produced by Shine Australia, but has been an in-house production for SBS for a few season now.
The show is watched by an average of around 140,000 viewers (5 city metro, OzTam) each night.
Letters & Numbers airs on SBS ONE, 6pm weeknights. Repeats run a week behind, at 3pm weekdays on SBS ONE.
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