An unusual line-up for Richard Osman's House of Games this week. Ashley John-Baptiste, Simon Rimmer, Claire Sweeney and Esme Young compete to be top dog. So for once there is no comedian in the mix. It's a week that is also more notable for another reason for the host. Richard Osman married actor/comedian Ingrid Oliver at the weekend - Oliver was coincidentally a guest on the show recently.
Simon Rimmer is best known as the co-host and co-banter merchant of Sunday Brunch with Tim Lovejoy. He is also a seriously talented chef and cooking is in his blood. He recently told The Sunday Times: "We went to Anglesey until I was ten, when we went on our first foreign holiday, to Italy. It sounds tragic, but I used to collect stamps, and my favourite ones were from San Marino. So we did a day trip there — where I bought even more stamps. As we have Italian heritage I’d always liked spaghetti bolognese, but eating it in Italy was magical. Even more exciting was having fizzy orange out of a bottle."
I remember Claire Sweeney from her soapy days as Lindsay Corkhill in Channel 4's Liverpool-set Brookside. More recently she has appeared on stage and screen, in dramas and musicals. This Christmas she will be back on Channel 4 in The Great Festive Bake Off when Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith return to the tent to celebrate Channel 4 ’s 40th anniversary. Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas are joined by Gaby Roslin, Tony Robinson, Miquita Oliver, Terry Christian and Claire Sweeney who will be hoping to win Christmas Star Baker.
Ex X Factor contestant Ashley John-Baptiste was raised in four different foster homes and then went to Cambridge before becoming an award winning BBC broadcaster. He was a key reporter in Russia for the Fifa 2018 World Cup.
Esme Young has become a star in her seventies as one of the judges on The Great British Sewing Bee. She is as famous for her necklaces as her uncanny ability to spot a wonky seam. She graduated from Central St Martins as a teen having had a passion for sewing from the age of 7.
Richard Osman's House of Games, Monday, December 5 to Friday, December 9, 6pm, BBC Two.
Picture: Remarkable Televison
