Apparently convinced that he is a kind of cross between Hughie Green and Oswald Mosley,  the man now thinks he and only he knows what is wrong with the country and therefore what needs to be done to put it right.

His manifesto appears to be as follows:

1) Anyone who dares re-edit footage of Noel’s HQ for repeat transmission has committed enough of a transgression for Noel to threaten to quit.

2) Anyone who works for a district council and, for whatever reason, rejects somebody’s application for a bungalow, stands open for a ear-bashing from a never-been-this-angry-before Noel, and should quit.

3) Britain is BROKEN and anyone who disagrees that Noel knows why it is broken should quit.

'Do you know something?': Noel Edmonds uber alles

Edmonds jumped back over the shark with Deal or No Deal, then went the other way again around 18 months or so ago, when his harmless-demented ratio started tipping towards demented once more and his messianic tendencies resurfaced yet again. His behaviour on Noel’s HQ recalls the worst of Mark Thomas (haranguing a public sector footsoldier who knows nothing about and can do nothing about the ire being directed at them) coupled with the worst of Nicky Campbell on Watchdog and the worst of any number of rentagobs on Question Time.

Noel’s squandered all the goodwill he managed to contrive when Deal or No Deal began. All that’s left is for a garden gate ‘off the record’ stream of bile to the press and things will have gone full circle.

With Deal Or No Deal still providing the television master a conduit for some of his greater presentational grandiosities, Are You Smarter Than a Ten-Year-Old? doing likewise on Sky One – and countless bits of Noel column inches about cosmic ordering and the BBC licence fee keeping our man in the public eye – one of television’s most self-confident exponents is currently firing on all cylinders.

But yet, as much as he might protest to the contrary, you sense his own personal journey back from the wilderness will not conclude until he is once more at the helm of a fuck-off massive light entertainment behemoth (preferably on the BBC). Back in 2006, we had Everyone’s a Winner! a one-off Lottery good causes Saturday night show, and now we have this – Noel’s HQ: Edmonds’ next attempt to re-establish himself as the grandmaster of live entertainment television.

But of course, this Sky One extravaganza was more than just 90-minutes of good, clean light entertainment. The title itself was a coded message to “Noel fans”, specifying how today’s Noel Edmonds is both the same and different to the one that hosted Noel’s House Party as recently as nine years ago. The message is that Noel’s HQ takes our man into new territory. His increasingly queasy Christmas specials are perhaps his most obvious precedent, but even they, with their mawkish sentimentality, are distinct from this latest project, merely by virtue of the fact their entire premise didn’t hinge around one basic assumption.

Noel’s HQ was destined to divide opinion, right from the outset because it presumes the viewers share the programme’s central thesis – that red tape (and by extension political correctness), is suffocating this great country. Clearly, whether you agree with this assertion or not probably largely determined what you made of this show. Noel’s HQ is a kind of hybrid of Noel’s Christmas Presents, Challenge Anneka, That’s Life! and Hughie Green’s infamous “Stand up and be counted” rant. It’s a live show in which members of the audience are singled out by Noel, who then goes on to tell us their story – usually a tale of honest citizens trying to make a difference. All of this is fair game of course, if rather uninspiring television.

What is less palatable however are the sequences in which Noel, from behind a news desk, brings us stories of local councils enforcing ridiculous laws, such as removing fly posters advertising a children’s charity. Each news item is followed up by a quick comment by – of all people – Carole Malone, stood atop a soap box, decrying Britain’s obsession with “red tape”. The section ends with Noel proclaiming we are living in “Bonkers Britain”, and then – get this – loads of people run on stage dressed in silly outfits, dancing around to a supposedly wacky jingle proclaiming the state of the nation as being “bonkers”. Even Keith Chegwin (who Noel refers to rather pleasingly as “Cheggers”) makes an appearance.

Throughout the show, Noel’s “common sense” assertions grow increasingly tiresome and irritating – television is never more annoying than when it assumes it’s reflecting your opinion, and item after item of Noel’s HQ provides Britain’s legion of white van drivers with further (metaphorical) fuel. Watch out Britain’s radio phone-in shows. For the viewer tuning in looking for a bit of balanced social commentary, or even just a fix of heart-warm, Noel’s HQ’s fist-shaking posturing is not what’s required.

All of this is irritating enough, but for me – someone who genuinely thinks Noel is a great television professional – what particularly galls is that this is 90 minutes of live television where Noel completely fails to innovate or pull any televisual tricks out of the bag. This, remember, is the man who gave us NTV and a whole litany of fantastic light entertainment concepts during the 1980s and 90s. You would have thought at last being given his own live format to play with once again, Noel would have made some attempt to show the younger generation there is still life in the old Edmonds.

Yet, aside from one unscripted riff in which Noel uses a technical problem with the Sky One website as a way to make a comment about viewers’ general distrust of television, this is simply a telly anchoring job, and something you would have thought quite beneath his manifest talents.

Who’s the best when it comes to handling a telephone on television? There aren’t many contenders. Hardly anybody uses one to chat with the viewing public anymore. Our voices boom from an unseen speaker or earpiece direct to the presenter, conveniently leaving them to stare groggily down the lens while their hands crease a piece of paper or fiddle with a tissue for want of anything better to do.

The practice of manipulating a handset in front of a pitiless camera and an equally unforgiving audience who didn’t tune in just to see someone yakking on a phone has tested the mettle of countless small screen professionals down the years. But only one man in the whole of television history has ever been able to craft an entire career out of such an otherwise mundane activity. And only one man could turn that activity into the lynchpin for not just a brand-new, consummately enjoyable daytime game show, but the foundation for nothing less than an all-out TV comeback.

Why does Deal or No Deal?, a quiz that by its own admission doesn’t have any real questions, nor one that requires any general knowledge whatsoever, and concerns itself with little more than a solitary contestant sitting in a high wooden chair calling out random numbers between 1 and 22, work so amazingly well? In part precisely because of that ultra-simple, instantly understandable format, already a hit around the world. But a lot is to do with its host, the one man who has been able, throughout his career, to take the simplest and most instantly understandable of things – including talking on a telephone – and from them fashion gripping TV: Noel Edmonds.

As with the man’s very act of returning to television after a too-long absence, a great deal of Deal or No Deal? involves a demonstration of immaculate timing. Presumably it comes instinctively to Noel after all these years, but it’s still rare to see such a skill trotted out with such casual aplomb in such a febrile environment. Looking back there’d always been an element of mastering the moment with Noel, of knowing when to essay that crucial phrase or word or when to shut up. But it was usually within a context loaded with so much paraphernalia jockeying for our attention that what was actually reticence more often than not ended up coming over as selfishness. Here, with only himself centre stage, finally we’re seeing the connoisseur of the barbed remark and the pregnant pause in his element.

And it is, quite simply, a joy to watch. It’s been a fair wait, but Noel and a format have finally come together in a way that allows both room to breathe. One isn’t constantly threatening to overwhelm or upset the other, and where Noel’s concerned that’s of vital importance. How many times down the decades have decent formats buckled under the weight of Noel’s demands to involve himself with that oh-so-fussy extra little bit of business? How many instances has Noel quite clearly struggled to be free of detritus washed up from too many re-treads of too many rehashed gimmicks and gunge tanks?

None of that applies here. It’s a proper dynamic between presenter and programme, with neither presuming to come close to permanently getting the upper hand. If proceedings look like simmering down, Noel lobs in a patented amiable ad-lib (“What’s that? You think you’re ’1% lucky’? Oh, I’d love to come into your world Dilys!”) or strikes another anguished pose, head to one side, fingers on chin, pensively staring. Conversely if Noel threatens to drift off into a reverie of babble, the phone goes and “the banker”, the show’s one gesture to the archly theatrical, cuts him dead.

Either way this programme has more periods of silence than any other quiz show currently on TV. Given such a wafer-thin premise, you could argue this is inevitable and a churlish decision on the part of the programme-makers: we haven’t switched on to watch a load of people staring at each other in mute amazement. On the other hand, and from a far more convincing point of view, it’s the silence that keeps you tuned in. It creates a vacuum that gut impulse orders you to fill, be it with chatter or gasps or murmurs or debate – anything by way of a response, to become part of the game, and to indulge in some unashamed “what would you do?” chicanery.

This reaches a tingling crescendo whenever the banker rings up and Noel listens, usually in complete silence, to the words the unnamed financier wishes to relay. Noel’s in heaven during these sequences. He knows he’s back doing what he can do best: reactive TV, conjuring up heart-stopping moments from thin air via a expertly-judged gesture, an impeccably-executed grimace or a self-indulgent burst of the giggles. The contestant looks on, agog. So do we. Is Noel making it all up? Is there a real person on the other end of the line? If not, just who is the mystery mercantile, so prone to derisory opening bids, cool calculation and provocative budgeting? “The banker would like to offer you a sum of money …” Noel resumes after replacing the handset and unleashing another agonizing pause “… after the break!” The swine!

Of course the show isn’t flawless. The set looks shoddy (too much wood panelling – did Noel specifically state he wanted nothing hi-tech or shiny?), the title music is awful, the studio audience too small and there’s the ubiquitous and woeful “interactive” element clumsily shoehorned into proceedings. Each edition is also predicated upon the contestant not cutting a deal with the banker to take the money and run, and instead choosing to play on, gambling on the likelihood of their own particular treasure chest containing a high sum rather than a penny. It’s pretty obvious, therefore, that the banker’s first and second offer will always be rejected. Nobody will “deal” straight away and the chance of landing a big prize will always be sustained beyond at least the first commercial break.

But even so, all of this cannot detract from the majesty of the show’s conception nor the wit and wisdom of its front man. It may trade in the motifs of other programmes similarly heavy on ponderous agitation and individual vexation (The Weakest Link, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?), but easily outclasses all contenders by virtue of a cutting back on histrionics and a majoring on fluidity. And it’s not just the contestants with whom Noel sparks and reacts – it’s his very environment. As he paces the floor, circling the players and orchestrating the entire circus, we’re a whole blessed world away from Anne Robinson perched behind her lectern of Chris Tarrant lolling in his upholstered leather console.

“I’ve waited a long time to get into this chair,” today’s contender insisted as she rejected another offer from the never-seen, never-heard banker, relayed with all-conquering poise by her host and confidante. We’ve all endured a similarly lengthy wait to see Noel back where he belongs. We can only hope that Deal or No Deal? ensures he hangs around to rustle many more such accomplished rounds of quizzing, besides just as many supreme reminders of the right way to deploy a telephone for light entertainment.