Pointless link to Billericay

Daytime TV is often mocked for being… well a bit terrible, a medium meant for the unemployed, the stay at home parents and those skiving off work with ‘illness’. However, since 2009 there has actually been good reason to call in sick as that was when game show Pointless first hit our screens.

For those few readers who are unaware of the game show, the object of the game is for contestants to provide answers that are not only correct but also as obscure as possible, based on the one hundred people that had been asked the question earlier. Therefore, scoring a pointless answer.

So, for example, if the question was ‘What notable celebrities have links to Billericay or Brentwood?’

James Corden, who plays Smithy in sitcom Gavin and Stacey, would no doubt be a popular answer as many are aware that the sitcom was set right here, in Billericay (see page 34). The same would be said for Jamie O Hara Billericay Town FC’s celebrity manager, everyone’s favourite sweaty comic Lee Evans, and David Gandy the internationally recognised model. Britain’s beloved bald hard man Ross Kemp would also be a correct but hard to imagine pointless answer, same goes to Frank Bruno, Frank Lampard, as well as Jodie Marsh and Louise Redknapp all of whom unbelievably have significant ties to Billericay or Brentwood. Together our towns have produced a hell of a (Pixie) Lott of celebrities and notable people (Popstar Pixie being one of them).

A pointless answer though may come from an unlikely source; co-host of the show itself, Richard Osman was born here in Billericay. That’s right daytime tele’s tallest and arguably smartest bloke is one of our own which might come as a surprise to most readers as he’s not a typical ‘Essex Lad’. Richard refers to himself as host Alexander Armstrong’s ‘pointless friend’ and provides the shows answers and much of its charm which has led to Richard making appearances on other television shows such as ‘Have I Got News for You’, ‘QI’, and eventually earning his own show ‘Richard Osman’s House of Games’.

Far from just a comical presenter Richard was among the team behind the concept of Pointless, his work as creative director for one of the country’s largest production companies (Endemol Shine UK) saw him amass credits on hugely popular shows: Total Wipeout, and the ‘nations’ favourite box based fun, Deal or No Deal (hosted by Noel Edmonds, whom was of course educated in Brentwood). On the subject of deals, last year Richard signed a lucrative deal for a series of fictional novels the first of which will be released in the autumn of this year, until then catch him on BBC One at 17:15.

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