Quote... Unquote
| Genre | Panel game |
|---|---|
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Language(s) | English |
| Home station | BBC Radio 4 |
| Syndicates | BBC Radio 4 Extra |
| Announcer | (Readers) Charlotte Green, Sally Grace |
| Created by | Nigel Rees |
| Recording studio | BBC Radio Theatre |
| Original release | 4 January 1976 – present |
| No. of series | 52 as of October 2015[ref] |
| No. of episodes | 476 as of October 2015[ref] |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Opening theme | Duddly Dell, written and performed by Dudley Moore |
| Website | Official website |
Quote ... Unquote is a panel game broadcast on BBC Radio 4 based on quotations. Every episode since the beginning of the series on 4 January 1976 has been chaired by its deviser, Nigel Rees. The programme broadcast its 52nd series in September/October 2016.
The main part of the programme consists of a non-competitive quiz where the chairman asks each of the four panellists in turn to identify where a certain quotation, phrase or saying comes from. In between these rounds, the panellists are asked to share some of their favourite quotations on a specified theme. Other parts of the programme are devoted to answering queries from the programme's listeners about the sources of quotations and the origins of everyday phrases and idioms.
There have been over 500 guests on the programme, many appearing multiple times. They include: Tom Stoppard, Peter Cook, Peter Ustinov, Judi Dench, Alan Bennett, Denis Healey, David Attenborough, Kingsley Amis, Kenneth Williams, Douglas Adams, John Mortimer, Neil Kinnock, Katharine Whitehorn, Malcolm Muggeridge and Lord George-Brown.
The programme uses former BBC staff announcers or actors to read the quotations. Ronald Fletcher was the original reader. In recent years the main male reader has been Peter Jefferson, formerly of Radio 4, who took over from William Franklyn when the actor died in 2006, though Charlotte Green has taken over the role from the beginning of Series 50 in August 2014. Former Radio 3 announcer Patricia Hughes was another regular, starting in 1994.
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Wikipedia