Raise the Roof (game show)

Raise the Roof was an unsuccessful British television game show which ran from 2 September 1995 to 13 January 1996, co-produced by Yorkshire Television and Action Time for ITV and hosted by Bob Holness.

History and gameplay

Raise the Roof was one of the first game shows to exploit the lifting of the Independent Broadcasting Authority's prize limits, by giving away a large, valuable house as the star prize. The show debuted on 2 September 1995 and lasted twelve episodes, with the final broadcast on 13 January 1996. The format featured several rounds of questions which progressively whittled the contestant pool from six to one. The final round offered the house as the grand prize, with cash amounts awarded as consolation prizes at each stage of the competition.

The program made little impact with the public and was not recommissioned. A typical audience was 6.1 million viewers as opposed to 13.8 million for BBC One's Casualty. Raise the Roof has since been described as the last example of the era when it was seen as "vulgar" to give away large sums of money and more appropriate to give away prizes of the same value instead. Another criticism was that the questions were too easy to generate real suspense, and the pacing was too slow to keep viewers interested.

External links

• Raise the Roof at UKGameshows.com
• Raise the Roof entry at TV Cream website
• Raise the Roof entry at British Film Institute database
• BBC story on ITV including discussion of Raise the Roof