Lingo (British game show)
British word-guessing game show with bingo elements in its original form.
Lingo is a British daytime game show that tests contestants on word-guessing skills.[1][2] The revival version, hosted by Adil Ray, eliminated the bingo element to focus entirely on wordplay.[3]
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Game show
- Based on
- Lingo, Ralph Andrews
- Presenter
- Martin Daniels (Original)
- Adil Ray (Revival)
- RuPaul (Celebrity Lingo)
- Voices
- Nick Jackson (Original)
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Series
- 1 (Original)
- 4 (Revival)
- 2 (Celebrity)
- Episodes
- 10 (Original); 169; 1 unaired (Revival); 17 (Celebrity Lingo)
Facts from the source article.
Making and release
The show premiered on ITV on 1 January 2021 at 4:35 pm.[1][2] It then moved to a regular 3 pm Monday-to-Friday slot.[1][2] Three pairs of contestants compete by guessing words that appear in Lingo grids and Puzzlewords.[1][4] A computer gives contestants the first letter of words of different lengths.[1][2]
The winning pair plays an end game where they can win or double their banked money.[1][2] In September 2022, ITV1 premiered the spin-off Celebrity Lingo hosted by RuPaul.[3] Celebrity Lingo was originally axed in March 2023 but revived in August 2025.[3] Adil Ray replaced RuPaul as host of the celebrity editions starting with series 2 on 25 February 2026.[3]
Adil Ray was chosen as the host when Objective Media Group brought back Lingo.[3]
What the cited sources add
A BirminghamLive article from 1 January 2021 states that Lingo rewards quick thinkers who are up against the clock.[1] An Entertainment Daily article from 1 January 2021 reports that viewers on Twitter called the show "dreadful" and "traumatised".[4] A DESIblitz article from 1 January 2021 quotes Adil Ray saying he felt like he had "won the star prize on a game show".[2] An Objective Media Group press release from 11 August 2025 states that the fifth series of Lingo was commissioned and that the show outperformed its slot average by 27%.[5]
The same article notes that some viewers praised the show, with one writing "Brilliant!"[4] A Manchester Evening News article from 27 July 2022 confirms that the American version of Lingo hosted by RuPaul was filmed at dock10 studios in Salford.[6]
References
- Harper, "New ITV game show Lingo launches with host Citizen Khan's Adil Ray", BirminghamLive, 1 January 2021. facts only, no text reused. birminghammail.co.uk
- "Adil Ray to Host ITV's New Game Show 'Lingo'", DESIblitz, 1 January 2021. facts only, no text reused. desiblitz.com
- Wikipedia, "Lingo (British game show)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Harper, "New ITV game show Lingo launches with host Citizen Khan's Adil Ray", BirminghamLive, 1 January 2021; "Viewers brand GMB host Adil Ray's new game show Lingo 'dreadful' as it leaves them 'traumatised'", Entertainment Daily, 1 January 2021; "Adil Ray to Host ITV's New Game Show 'Lingo'", DESIblitz, 1 January 2021; Maidment, "RuPaul to film new Lingo TV series in Salford - and here's how to get tickets", Manchester Evening News, 2022-07-27; Warner, "RuPaul's Celebrity Lingo has future addressed after series 1", Digital Sp en.wikipedia.org
- "Viewers brand GMB host Adil Ray's new game show Lingo 'dreadful' as it leaves them 'traumatised'", Entertainment Daily, 1 January 2021. facts only, no text reused. entertainmentdaily.co.uk
- "ITV commissions fifth run of Objective’s daytime hit Lingo with celeb specials", Objective Media Group, 11 August 2025. facts only, no text reused. objectivemedia.group
- Maidment, "RuPaul to film new Lingo TV series in Salford - and here's how to get tickets", Manchester Evening News, 2022-07-27. facts only, no text reused. manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Lingo (British game show) (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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