I was not familiar with the English television presenter and comedian Tom O’Connor, who died from Parkinson’s about two months ago. But, an alert about his passing showed up in my news feed because in addition to hosting such popular British game shows as Crosswits, Name that Tune, and Password, he also hosted a snooker-themed game show called Pick Pockets.
What was this?
Of course, there have been snooker-themed game shows, such as Pot the Question from 1984 or the widely popular Big Break, which ran from 1991-2002, but this one had clearly eluded my research. Wikipedia lists over 500 British game shows, but there’s no mention of Pick Pockets. Nor does it appear on the British Game Show Wiki, the website UK Game Shows, or searching the BBC. Yet, sure enough, there on YouTube, user gareth11077 had posted the pilot episode from 1988. You can watch it here.
Fortunately, I was able to contact gareth11077, who I subsequently learned was Gareth McGinley, author of Heart Breaks: The Tony Knowles Story, and a self-described enthusiast and researcher of ‘80s snooker. Through my email exchange with him, as well as a separate email exchange with Trevor Chance, the creator of Pick Pockets (as well as the founder of Legends, Europe’s longest running live tribute show), I learned that the show I had watched was an untransmitted pilot, as the series actually never aired. The hope was to get it onto ITV, but the network’s commissioner at the time, Greg Dyke, allegedly had a particular dislike for snooker that not only left Pick Pockets homeless, but more important, signaled a “death knell of snooker on ITV, as well.”
According to Mr. Chance, Pick Pockets was inspired by a game of snooker he was playing (and was not influenced by its forbearer Pot the Question). Produced by Tyne Tees, the ITV television franchise for Northeast England, the show combined “the knowledge of our teams with the snooker skills of our guest professionals,” as Mr. O’Connor shared in his opening.
Pick Pockets had two competing teams, each pairing a local contestant with a celebrity. In the pilot episode, the celebrities were TV actor George Layton and English women’s cricket captain Rachel Heyhoe Flint. The teams, in turn, were each paired with a professional snooker player. The episode’s two players were John Parrott, who one year later would lose the World Snooker Championship to Steve Davis, and the “Silver Fox” David Taylor, a familiar face in the ‘80s though after 1980 he never made it past the quarterfinals of the World Championship. Completing the celebrity lineup was Len Ganley, the show’s “resident referee” and scorekeeper (who refereed four World Championships between 1983 and 1993).
(At the end of the episode, the audience is promised that next week’s episode – which was never made – would star Alex Higgins and Willie Throne, two true giants of the sport. Oh well.)
Gameplay begins by each snooker player breaking their opponent’s rack. The 15 red balls have no value; they are obstacles to interfere with potting the colored balls and can be removed in the first round by each team correctly answering trivia questions, such as “how many toes does a rhinoceros have? (three) or “what is a jumbuck to an Australian?” (a sheep).
Once a ball is removed for each correct answer, round two begins. In this round, the players seek to pot the colored balls in order, while avoiding the remaining red balls. The pockets have different point values, and points are earned by a combination of answering a trivia question and potting the ball. The team that has the most points advances to the third round.
In this final round, the non-celebrity contestant must answer six trivia questions. Each right answer earns his snooker-playing teammate 10 seconds to run a table consisting of the six colored balls. The player wants to leave as much time on the clock because once the table is run, the remaining time will be used to pot a single gold ball, which is worth 1000 pounds (or approximately $1700 USD in 1988).
While clearly dated through today’s viewing lens, the show was entertaining and had a certain imbued charm, principally due to Mr. O’Connor’s jovial banter. It’s a shame it never aired. Evidently, the ingredients were right, as Big Break proved only a few years later with a format that is uncannily similar to Pick Pockets.
