The Paul O'Grady Show

Did You Know?

• The show appeared in a series 3 episode of The Catherine Tate Show, where Joannie 'Nan' Taylor walked off set after swearing at O'Grady.
• The show made a brief appearance in the Doctor Who episode 'The Stolen Earth'.
• A 'Find a Dog a Home' slot on Channel 4 initially required viewers to call a 10p-per-call information service, causing charity involvement to drop until the premium rate line was dropped on 29 May 2006.

History

ITV had struggled to fill the 5–6pm slot with a popular programme, as two daytime soap operas—Night and Day and a revived Crossroads—failed to achieve significant ratings. Daytime versions of Catchphrase and Family Fortunes also proved unsuccessful. The Paul O'Grady Show was commissioned in October 2004 after O'Grady impressed ITV management as a guest presenter on Today with Des and Mel, where he stood in for Des O'Connor and was brought back several times. O'Grady became good friends with co-presenter Melanie Sykes, who later stood in for him on his own show. A popular feature was Guess the Tune (later called The Organ Game), a phone-in competition where O'Grady played tunes on his organ for contestants to guess, with prizes up to £2,000; the lead-in tune was a truncated version of Gracie Fields' "Sing As We Go". O'Grady's dog Buster, a Shih Tzu/Bichon Frise cross, appeared for five minutes at the start of each programme during the ITV incarnation. On 10 January 2006, O'Grady announced he was leaving ITV for Channel 4 after Granada Television forgot to renew his contract; he sought more creative control, which Granada had refused. His production company Olga TV took over production for Channel 4.

Series overview

The series began on ITV on 11 October 2004, featuring a competition to find the country's best meat and potato pie, won by the Denby Dale Pie Company. Series two aired from 14 March to 27 May 2005, and the final original ITV series ended on 23 December 2005. Repeats of the ITV series were shown in direct competition with new Channel 4 episodes after O'Grady left. The first Channel 4 series, titled The New Paul O'Grady Show, aired from 27 March to 16 June 2006, recorded at BBC Television Centre due to a dispute with ITV. The second series was delayed from 4 September to 25 September 2006 because O'Grady suffered a second heart attack, and ran until 26 January 2007. Buster missed the first two weeks due to an eye infection, replaced by O'Grady's other dog Olga. On 16 January 2007, a repeat aired instead of a live show because O'Grady was ill with a sickness bug; he returned live the next day. The third Channel 4 series ran from 2 April to 15 June 2007, and the seventh series overall (fourth on Channel 4) began 17 September 2007, dropping "The New" from the title, retinting the opening titles red, and returning to The London Studios.

Guest hosts

After his second heart attack, Channel 4 insisted O'Grady take a week off from 23 to 27 October 2006, with guest presenters hosting one day each. There have been three more scheduled guest-hosted weeks and 27 different celebrity guest hosts in total. In April 2008, two unscheduled guest-hosted weeks occurred when O'Grady contracted flu; he hosted Monday shows but was ill the rest of the weeks. Melanie Sykes guest-hosted five of the eight remaining shows, having previously hosted three times, for a total of 11 appearances. On 15 October 2009, O'Grady had dental work and Joe Pasquale substituted. On 18 November 2013, O'Grady was taken ill with a suspected angina attack; Michael Ball hosted that episode with 40 minutes' notice, followed by Stephen Mulhern, Emma Willis, Vernon Kay, and Jo Brand. O'Grady returned on 25 November and thanked the five stand-ins. For the episode hosted by Jackie Collins, O'Grady himself was a guest alongside Paris Hilton.

The Paul O'Grady Players annual pantomime

Each year, the show featured a live Christmas pantomime on the last Wednesday before Christmas, with roughly 15 guest stars and a narrator—Antony Cotton, Dawn French, Kate Thornton, Sandi Toksvig, or Stephen Fry. The panto ran most of the show, with about five minutes left for viewer emails; in 2006's Peter Pan, it ran 40 minutes, followed by an interview with narrator Dawn French, the organ game, and emails. The pantos were: 2005 The Wizard of Oz, 2006 Peter Pan, 2007 Cinderella, 2008 Pinocchio, and 2009 Sleeping Beauty (broadcast 14 December). Jo Brand appeared in every panto, and O'Grady thanked her after the fifth and final one on 14 December 2009. The pantomime did not return in the 2013 revival.