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So You Want to be Top?

NOISY SHOUTY roustabout ostensibly cocking a “snook” at “teacher” but in reality a lazily-themed kids’ gameshow ripping off CRACKERJACK (or rather, ripping off Bad Era CRACKERJACK) by virtue of its hackneyed hybrid of trivia, crap puns, dressing up and custard pies in the standard BBC vein. Marshalling said forces was GARY WILMOT. Fortunately the West End beckoned before too much harm was done.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Tom Ronson

    March 31, 2022 at 3:29 pm

    Gary Wilmot may not have been the best impressionist around, but he was always very likeable. He fell into that unfortunate eighties trap where anyone who could impersonate someone off Eastenders and someone off Coronation Street with a reasonable degree of accuracy was unaccountably rewarded either with a part in a middling Saturday teatime comedy series, or a middling Saturday teatime comedy series of their very own – in which their limitations would be cruelly exposed. That said, So You Want to Be Top? was fairly desperate stuff – Spike Milligan could just about get away with using joke shop props and novelties in his sketches, as could Brian Cant on Play Away, but when Wilmot did it, it came across as a slightly wacky supply teacher trying a bit too hard to endear himself to the bruisers at the back of the class.

  2. Richardpd

    August 27, 2023 at 1:22 pm

    I remember after a re-tool the contestants were from a pool of actors, ones I remember were nerdy Robert, giggly Melanie & cool kid Sean, complete with 1980s wrap around shades & Walkman earphones.

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