Big Break is a British game show that aired on BBC1 from 30 April 1991 and 10 August 2002 and hosted by Jim Davidson with John Virgo as referee. The programme focuses on teams consisting of a contestant and a professional snooker player competing in rounds that involve snooker, with the best team eventually seeing its player seeking to win prizes for their contestant.

History

The idea of a snooker-related television game show was first thought of by Mike Kemp in 1984 who was also a keen snooker player around that time. He mentioned his idea to a number of friends, but the only person who was interested then and who even put a similar idea to him was mini cab driver Roger Medcalf. Kemp and Medcalf both produced a written format in 1987 where it was called Big Break and it went through a number of versions, Kemp then proposed to Medcalf that they should try to get Terry Mardell interested, Mardell was an expert in relation to quiz shows and was another one of Kemp's friends who told him his idea of a snooker game show three years prior, which was also during that year Mardell devised a successful bingo-related quiz show called Bob's Full House. Mardell agreed to meet Kemp and Medcalf in his office to discuss the snooker-related game that the two men came up with and showed Mardell their written format for the show, Mardell's immediate response was that it was far too complicated, would take far too long and would cost far too much, but he was willing to help them in a further meeting that would take place in his flat where the three men would further discuss and contribute various suggestions to the idea. That meeting produced a further version of the format and afterwards Kemp was left to retype the format where it was called "the June format". It was first practised at King's Cross Snooker Club where a week later, the three men met again to work out how the game could be improved with a view to a presentation to the BBC. They attended the presentation as well as Jim Moir and Kevin Bishop from the BBC where they were sufficiently interested to agree to have rehearsals at the BBC's Acton Studios in October.

Format

In each episode of the game show, three contestants are each paired up with a professional snooker player – while the contestant tackles questions given by the host, the player handles the snooker-based challenges in each round. Although a game show, Davidson and Virgo usually interject comedy into each episode, including a brief stand-up routine at the beginning of an episode before the introduction of the contestants and players. Although the first two rounds have their own rules, the last two stick to traditional regulation snooker rules regarding potting balls – colours being potted only after a red is potted – although with six red balls used in these rounds except the first round which has ten red balls. The snooker table on this game show has one colour on each pocket (Corner Pockets: Brown, Blue, Pink and Black, Central Side Pockets: Yellow and Green). The programme features four rounds:

Snooker Player Partners

Series 1 (1991)

Series 2 (1992)

Series 3 (1992)

Series 4 (1993-94)

Series 5 (1994)

Series 6 (1995)

Series 7 (1996)

Series 8 (1997)

Series 9 (1998)

Series 10 (2001)

Transmissions

Regular

Stars of the Future

Christmas Specials

Trick Shot Specials