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The Blame Game (British TV programme)

Northern Irish comedy panel radio and television show

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ7718541 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Blame Game is a Northern Irish comedy panel series that has been broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster and later jointly on BBC One Northern Ireland. Starting in 2005, it is hosted by Tim McGarry. Regular panellists include comedians Colin Murphy, Neil Delamere, and, until 2020, Jake O'Kane. Former guest panellist local comedian Diona Doherty, became a regular panellist since series 19. As well as the regular three panellists, they also have a regular guest panellist. The guest panellist is usually a comedian from outside Northern Ireland who is not always as familiar with the complexities of Northern Irish politics which leads to some hilarity.

It is generally filmed at BBC Northern Ireland's Blackstaff House studios in Belfast, but it has in past also been filmed in the Millennium Forum in Derry.

Format

In the first and main round called "Pass the Buck", individual members of the audience ask the contestants who they feel responsible for a topical issue, usually in the structure "Who do you blame for...?" Example issues include binge drinking, the "Stroke City" problem and trick or treating. Tim McGarry passes the question over to a contestant who attempts to answer it, normally in a humorous off-topic manner.

In the second round ("Blame It on the Boogie"), a piece of music is played, and the contestants must try to figure out why it is being played.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Blame Game (British TV programme)” is northern Irish comedy panel radio and television show. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Blame, Game and British, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2005, 2020—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Blame, Game and British is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “northern Irish comedy panel radio and television show” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7718541. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2005 and 2020.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Blame Game (British TV programme)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Blame Game (British TV programme) primary sources, The Blame Game (British TV programme) archive and Blame research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Blame Game (British TV programme)”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Blame Game (British TV programme)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.