{{Use dmy dates, date=July 2014 ''Puzzle Panel'' was a light-hearted, though cerebral

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

panel game A panel show or panel game is a radio broadcasting, radio or television game show in which a panel of celebrities participates. Celebrity panelists may compete with each other, such as on ''The News Quiz''; facilitate play by non-celebrity conte ...

that was broadcast between 1998 and 2005. An additional series was broadcast over the winter-spring of 2011, and a further series was broadcast during the same period in 2012. It has been written and presented by puzzle columnist for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'',

Chris Maslanka Christopher M. Maslanka (born 27 October 1954) is a British writer and broadcaster, specialising in puzzles and problem solving. He was born in Clapham, London, but was brought up by his uncle and aunt in Lowdham, Nottingham. He was educated at ...

. In each half-hour programme, the panellists brought along one puzzle with which to test the mental mettle of the other two panellists and their host. Essentially, it was just for fun and no points were scored. Another puzzle, the Panel Beater, was contributed by a listener. A prize was available for solving a competition puzzle.

Programme format

During the opening introduction, Chris Maslanka would present a few short puzzles for the listeners and panellists to work on during the course of the programme. He would then introduce the three panellists, and invite each in turn to present a puzzle to the others. Each panellist would present a different type of puzzle. In general, one would be a numerical puzzle, one would be literal (i.e. a word puzzle) and one would be a logic puzzle. Interwoven between these puzzles, Chris would invite the panellists to solve the puzzles from the introduction, present the Panel Beater puzzle, and read out correspondence from the listeners. The Listener's Puzzle would be set at the end of the programme. On some occasions, this would involve a short play with the parts played by the members of the panel. A frequent theme for these plays centred on Chris playing the role of

Hercule Poirot Hercule Poirot (, ) is a fictional Belgian detective created by British writer Agatha Christie. Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-running characters, appearing in 33 novels, two plays ('' Black Coffee'' and ''Alibi''), and more ...

. Occasionally, Chris would play the piano, with him and the panellists singing a song, sometimes using some awful (but very well crafted) puns.

Panellists

Regular panellists included: *

David J. Bodycombe David J. Bodycombe (born 1973 in Darlington, County Durham) is an English puzzle author and games consultant. He is based in London, and his work is read by over 2 million people a day in the UK, and is syndicated to over 300 newspapers intern ...

, puzzle devisor *Victor Bryant, mathematician *

Geoffrey Durham Geoffrey Durham (born 22 July 1949) is a British comedy magician and actor who was known for many years as "the Great Soprendo". Early life Durham was born in East Molesey, Surrey, England. At the age of ten, he developed an interest in mag ...

, magician *

Rob Eastaway Rob Eastaway is an English author. He is active in the popularisation of mathematics and was awarded the Zeeman medal in 2017 for excellence in the promotion of maths. He is best known for his books, including the bestselling ''Why Do Buses Come ...

, author and lecturer *Val Gilbert,

Daily Telegraph Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...

crossword A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white- and black-shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answ ...

editor *

William Hartston William Roland Hartston (born 12 August 1947) is an English journalist who wrote the Beachcomber column in the '' Daily Express''. He is also a chess player who played competitively from 1962 to 1987 and earned a highest Elo rating of 2485. He ...

, newspaper columnist * Paul Lamford,

Backgammon Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...

champion and writer *

Don Manley Don Manley (born 2 June 1945) is a long-serving setter of crosswords in the UK. He has supplied puzzles for the '' Radio Times'', ''The Spectator'', ''Today'', ''The Independent'', ''The Times'', ''The Daily Telegraph'', ''The Guardian'', and the ...

, crossword writer *Prof. Angela Newing, research scientist *Prof.

David Singmaster David Breyer Singmaster (born 1938) is an emeritus professor of mathematics at London South Bank University, England. A self-described metagrobologist, he has a huge personal collection of mechanical puzzles and books of brain teasers. He is mos ...

, mathematician and puzzle collector Other panellists included: *

Johnny Ball Johnny Ball (born Graham Thalben Ball; 23 May 1938) is an English television personality, a populariser of mathematics and the father of BBC Radio 2 DJ Zoe Ball. Early life Ball was born in Bristol and attended Kingswood Primary School on th ...

, TV presenter and maths populariser *Philip Carter, prolific author of IQ puzzle books *Prof.

Marcus du Sautoy Marcus Peter Francis du Sautoy (; born 26 August 1965) is a British mathematician, Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, Fellow of New College, Oxford and author of popular mathematics and popu ...

, mathematician and presenter of

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

Mind Games Playing mind games (also power games or head games) is the largely conscious struggle for psychological one-upmanship, often employing passive–aggressive behavior to specifically demoralize or dis-empower the thinking subject, making the a ...

Richard Vranch Richard Leslie Vranch (born 29 June 1959) is an English actor, improviser, comedian, writer and musician. He is known for providing the music for the British TV series '' Whose Line Is It Anyway?'' Early life Vranch graduated from Cambridge U ...

PhD., performer In the last two programmes of the 2005 series, a couple of listeners were invited to join the panel. Programme five's guest, Stephen Buxton, was a regular Panel Beater contributor, and programme six's guest, Jenny Murray, was a member of the public who regularly answered the Listener's Puzzle correctly.

Producers

The original producer was Harry Parker.

Clare Csonka Clare may refer to: Places Antarctica * Clare Range, a mountain range in Victoria Land Australia * Clare, South Australia, a town in the Clare Valley * Clare Valley, South Australia Canada * Clare (electoral district), an electoral district * Cl ...

produced a few series, and the 2005 series was produced by Harry Parker once more.

External links

''Puzzle Panel'' page on BBC website
– includes some puzzles from early series BBC Radio 4 programmes British radio game shows 1990s British game shows 2000s British game shows 1998 radio programme debuts 2005 radio programme endings