With Surprise Surprise established and Cilla Black more bankable than she had been for years, the toothy Liverpudlian moved on to present a “lorra lorra laughs” on Blind Date – a Saturday teatime show that owed much of its success to the fact that she never sang on it.
Produced by LWT – and with a format based on elements of the US show The Dating Game and an Australian show called Perfect Match – three unseen contestants delivered rehearsed answers to three scripted questions posed by a boy or girl looking for a date.
Based on their answers, one was chosen to accompany the questioner on a special trip.
This may have involved anything from a week on the Mediterranean to a day at a safari park, depending on their luck in drawing envelopes.
The following week, the blind daters returned to tell all about their experience and to give honest feedback about their unfortunate partners, while Cilla egged them on.
Having Cilla as the host proved an inspired choice. She came across as an affectionately curious aunt, able to feign genuine interest in her guests’ romantic fortunes and equally convincing disappointment when they failed to gel as a couple, as was often the case.
Another crucial ingredient in the show’s success was the voiceover announcer Graham Skidmore, known as “our Graham”, who would offer barbed one-line reminders of the contestants’ salient points prior to the final selection being made.
However, despite plenty of innuendo in both Graham’s remarks and the (pre-scripted) contestants’ boasts about their appeal, the programme was firmly family-friendly, befitting its early evening slot.
In later years, ‘golden oldies’ took part to prove that love wasn’t strictly the preserve of the young, and a handful of future celebrities graced the studio, including actress Amanda Holden (in 1990), CBBC presenter Ortis Deeley (in 1995) and CMTV presenter Jenni Falconer (in 1994).
Things didn’t always go smoothly, though. In 1998, one poor contestant was left jilted at the airport when his date was so unimpressed with him that she decided not to bother. The camera crew followed him all the way to Africa, where he had a great holiday on his own.
Another scandal occurred when Daily Star reporter Nicola Cill was unmasked as a journalist by Cilla in the ‘post-mortem’ chat.
Thankfully, the course of true love did run smooth for three couples during the course of the programme’s run -Cilla had to go and buy herself a ‘new ‘at’ for the weddings of recruitment consultant Sue Middleton and accountant Alex Tatham (1991), Lillian Morris and David Fenson (1994), and Anna Azonwanna and Paul Pratt (1998),
Their 1991 wedding was captured in a special programme titled Blind Date Wedding Of The Year, which drew 16.4 million viewers.
Sadly, the appeal of the show began to wear thin as the contestants’ carefully rehearsed ad-lib answers started to grate, and the series wrapped after 18 years.
Cilla Black took advantage of a one-off live edition on 4 January 2003 to announce her resignation – without warning the production team in advance. There had been plans to continue with a different presenter, but Cilla was deemed to be irreplaceable, and the 18th series proved to be the final one.
Paul O’Grady revived the series in 2017.
Presenter
Cilla Black Announcer
Graham Skidmore
Video
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Produced by LWT – and with a format based on elements of the US show The Dating Game and an Australian show called Perfect Match – three unseen contestants delivered rehearsed answers to three scripted questions posed by a boy or girl looking for a date.
