The Adventure Game
| The Adventure Game | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Game show |
| Presented by | Patrick Dowling |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 22 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 25-45 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network |
BBC1 (1980) BBC2 (1981-6) |
| Picture format | 4:3 |
| Original release | 24 May 1980 – 18 February 1986 |
The Adventure Game was a game show, aimed at children but with an adult following, which was originally broadcast on UK television channels BBC1 and BBC2 between 24 May 1980 and 18 February 1986. The story in each show was that the two celebrity contestants and a member of the public had travelled by space ship to the planet Arg. Their overall task varied with each series. For example, the team might be charged with finding a crystal needed to power their ship to return to Earth. The programme is often considered to have been a forerunner of The Crystal Maze.
The programme came about because Patrick Dowling (who also introduced episodes of series 2) had an interest in Dungeons and Dragons and wanted to televise a show that would capture the mood. The programme also has a similar sci-fi feel to the work of Douglas Adams, who was asked by Patrick to write the show, as he already agreed to write a TV series of his own radio show The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The first two series were written and produced by Dowling and directed by Ian Oliver, who wrote and produced the final two series after Dowling had retired from the BBC.
Arg was inhabited by shapeshifting dragons known as Argonds. As a reference to this, most proper nouns in the programme, including Argond, were anagrams of the word dragon. To avoid scaring contestants, within a few minutes before they arrived, generally all Argonds shifted form, mostly to human.
Notable characters within the game included:
The look of the characters in Argond form was quite different in the various series:
Notable contestants included Keith Chegwin, Sue Cook, astronomer Heather Couper, John Craven, Paul Darrow, Noel Edmonds, Sarah Greene, Bonnie Langford, James Burke and Richard Stilgoe.
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