I know as much about what went on behind the scenes as you do so both are equally likely although I have to say you must've been watching last week's show with your eyes closed. To say he was visibly exasperated with her painfully unfunny titting about is a VAST understatement.

We both know that the regulars stay in place when they're filming two shows in a day. He didn't this time so in the absence of a statement from Lock we're free to speculate why that might've been.

I must say, I never noticed him being 'visibly exasperated'. You'll have to point out when he was.

What am I? Your researcher???

Check it out on My4 and read back in this thread to see it was commented upon at the time.

You're the one making accusations - surely it's incumbent upon you to back it up.

I watched the show and never saw what you're referring to. It reminds me a bit of when people slag off Jon Richardson and say how badly he goes down with the studio audience. I've never seen him go down badly with the studio audience.

I suspect what is happening is people letting their prejudices about things colour what they see. You don't like Claudia Winkleman - so you assume no one else likes her either. Sean Lock is a deadpan comedian - he's not particularly demonstrative. You seem to think that was exasperation. I suspect it wasn't.

You didn't watch closely enough - He was clearly annoyed at her ineptitude as were most of the viewing audience here. Not just me that's acclaimed it as THE worst edition ever.

I'm floating a theory, one that had occurred to others. Not a court of law so it isn't "incumbent" upon me to do squat to corroborate it to your satisfaction.

We done here?

Suit yourself. At least you're admitting you're just 'floating a theory' I suppose.

Note - Posed as a question.

Just watched the most recent episode and if you skip the Winkleman parts, it was actually one of the funniest episodes i've seen in a long time.

I assume both episodes with Winkleman were filmed on the same day, so hopefully Rachel will be back for the next lot.

According to my planner, the next episode is on the 24th March and Rachel is back on numbers-and-letters duty.

Well we're due back from our honeymoon on the 23rd and she did say she wanted to get straight back to work

I don't know why Sean wasn't in the last episode but I can tell you it was filmed on the same night as last weeks and filming for the most recent one without Sean was delayed for some reason and filming didn't finish until well after 11pm. Having said that they didn't rush it and about 90 minutes of pretty funny stuff had to be cut from the filming.
They cut an entire section of a game John created called Fruit **** where they threw fruit at him and he hit it round the studio with a stick.

I could not agree more, whoever she was Claudia definitely dragged down the tone of the show. I did not really know who she was as I do not watch dancing programmes.

Let's hope Rachel Riley is never absent again and if she is they need a better replacement as last night was a very difficult watch.

She should stick to pre watershed TV programmes which I rarely watch.

Interesting. If I'm permitted to speculate (should I email the doubters in the thread to ask first if it's OK....? Decisions, decisions...) perhaps that was the time they used to hurriedly get hold of Vegas as a replacement for Sean?

Doubters, please note the use of a question mark - My post is NOT a statement of fact nor is it an invitation to treat it as such so you can manufacture some faux-outrage over it either.

The biggest waste of space to me was Sara Pascoe, utterly unfunny, adds nothing to any show she appears on. Her entire contribution appeared to consist of the wearing of a hat.

I never used to like Sean Lock but I must confess that I missed him this week.

Hopefully it will all be back to normality next week.

Was it my imagination or did Jon use the same number twice in his calculations?

It`s possible as Johnny went in through the main door as we were waiting and the others were backstage

I suppose it's entirely feasible that Sean was simply taken ill between filming and had to leave, so Johnny was called up at the last minute.

Or it could be that he had another show he had to get to so could only commit to a certain number of hours.

I can't see him being the type of person to walk out midway through a taping.

Other than Claudia (and Rob Beckett, who is usually a decent laugh, but not on this occasion) I thought this was actually a decent episode.

I thought Johnny Vegas was particularly funny during the introduction segment of the show. To paraphrase ...


I did think that Sean got a bit fed up with Claudia during last week's episode but I seriously doubt that he flaunted out of this week's episode because of it.


I somewhat agree with this. She came on with a prop hat, that could supposedly read people's thoughts. I assumed that would lead to at least one joke during the episode but I guess it didn't, or it was so weak it wasn't worth broadcasting, as all she did was sit with it on her head all show ... really what was the point of it?

He's eaten and drank some horrible shit on this show and kept on going and he looked healthy enough during that first show so in the absence of a doctor's note I'm not convinced.

If he faked an illness to get out of show #2 I would understand perfectly!

Surely if they needed someone last minute to replace Sean wouldn't they have just asked rob and left Claudia to manage the letters and numbers on her own instead of waiting for Johnny to turn up??

Just watching an older episode on More4. Who thought Joe Wilkinson was ever a good idea and why did they keep bringing him on?!?!

Probably the same person who thought that Winkleman was the ideal stand in for Riley.

Sean Lock is a middle-aged comedian who is more than capable of working with someone for a few hours in one day, no matter how funny he thinks they are (or aren't). Cats/Cats Does Countdown is one of his main jobs and he works with different people on it all the time, some of whom he'll like, others he won't so much. It's his job and I highly doubt it even bothers him.

Besides, even if he did have a problem with Claudia (he doesn't), and was unprofessional enough to refuse to work with her (he isn't), do you really think they'd choose to have her on the show over him?

He obviously had a prior engagement which meant he was able to make the earlier show but not the later one, which he booked off ages in advance in order for them to be able to book his replacement.

But on the subject of Claudia, she doesn't really work on a show like this. She's just not funny enough. She'd have been OK as a team mate because they don't really need to be that funny, but they should have just had Rob Beckett doing the numbers and letters IMO.

Claudia's problem wasn't that she isn't funny enough, Rachel isn't a comedian either, it was that she was trying too hard to be funny. If she'd just calmed down, she'd have been fine.

She can't though. Her being kooky and quirky is her only act. Tends to spoil pretty much everything I see her in.


I was surprised she does the voiceovers for the BAFTAs. So when being professional she can be good.