Peter Holmes

A personal story is offered, and the people opposite begin looking for reasons not to believe it. In Would I Lie to You? (2007), Peter Holmes makes that small exchange enough to sustain a comedy programme we readily recommend. The opposing team must decide whether the story is true, which gives every question and interruption a purpose. David Mitchell and Lee Mack, as captains, have something to argue over, with Rob Brydon hosting. We need little explanation before we can join in.

Holmes came to formats through writing, with credits on the catalogue parody Unnovations (2001) and the sketch series Spoons (2005). The move to creating Would I Lie to You? shifted the emphasis from written material to a game in which performers could question one another. He has also served as its executive producer, working through Zeppotron. His later executive-production credits include Frankie Boyle’s New World Order (2017).

We laughed at the questioning in Would I Lie to You?, because the objections can be as funny as the account being challenged. Holmes’s useful decision is to make listening part of the game: a participant needs to hear a story before trying to pick it apart. Mitchell, Mack and Brydon supply the company that makes the programme worth returning to even when a round is thin. Holmes also shares the work with director Barbara Wiltshire and fellow executive producer Ruth Phillips.

The temptation with a creator’s credit is to attribute every successful exchange to the person who devised the rules. We would stop short of that, but Holmes deserves credit for a game that gives funny people something useful to do together. Thin stories can still take too long to resolve, and even good company cannot make every round equally rewarding. Start with Would I Lie to You? for a relaxed half-hour, allowing a little patience for the anecdotes that do not warrant quite so many questions.