reacting to bullseye

Bullseye has a special place in my heart because it kept me company during my first winter in England. I moved here in November 2015 with two job interviews booked for the week I arrived. Both turned me down. While my partner went to work, I spent long afternoons in our tiny flat applying for jobs and watching daytime repeats.

By January 2016, the Christmas lights were gone and I was applying for practically every admin or entry-level job I could find. This strange combination of darts, questions and prizes became one of the first British TV shows I watched. Revisiting clips in my April 2024 video brought all of that back, even though I didn’t recognise the particular moments I found.

A game show with a darts board

If you haven’t seen it, the simplest way I can describe Bullseye is a darts competition meeting a trivia show, with some of the prize excitement of The Price Is Right. In the clips I watched, a pair could win a collection of prizes and then decide whether to risk them for a mystery star prize. Sometimes that gamble ended wonderfully. Sometimes it really didn’t.

I kept hoping for a speedboat, partly because the idea of winning one while living in Sheffield made me laugh. I could understand wanting a car or a lovely holiday you would actually use. A boat might at least be something you could sell. But the uncertainty was part of the fun: you didn’t necessarily know what you were risking your prizes to get.

The first clip delivered a fashion shopping spree. The announcement made it sound spectacular, while the outfits on offer made me laugh. A pleated skirt, an autumn-coloured blouse and loose-fitting trousers made a funny contrast with the excited build-up. I loved looking at the contestants’ clothes in these old programmes too. Everything about it felt so dated, in a way I enjoyed.

Getting invested in someone else’s gamble

One pair won a stack of prizes from the board, including a television, a robot toy and a stereo. They then chose to gamble those prizes. The challenge in that clip was to score 101 or more with six darts, with the non-darts player going first. Their cash was separate from the prizes at stake, which helped me understand what they were actually risking.

I was far too invested. I was cheering them on and hoping for a speedboat, even though I was watching an old clip at my desk. They managed the score, and the reveal was a collection of kitchen appliances. A freezer, dishwasher, cooker and microwave! Then my immediate question was how two people divided up a prize like that. Who gets the dishwasher?

There was another clip where the gamble paid off with a car. That felt like a genuinely useful big prize to me. I read a comment about the way Jim Bowen manhandled the winners and dragged them over to their prizes. It was quite a contrast with all the gentle encouragement while they threw.

The last gamble was the one that hurt. The pair had won the prizes on the board, then risked them and missed the target score. Afterwards, the show revealed the holiday they would have won: two weeks in Corfu with accommodation for each contestant’s family. That was exactly the sort of prize I would have wanted. Watching them lose it made the gamble feel much less funny.

Learning to listen to Jim

The show meant more to me than the prize reveals. Jim’s phrases, slang and the speed with which he joined his words together were unfamiliar when I first arrived. Listening to him helped introduce me to bits of British culture and speech I hadn’t heard before. When I think of him, I think of Bullseye, the big glasses, the outfits and that way of speaking.

Tony’s gentle encouragement was another pleasure. I laughed at a comment imagining him calmly talking someone through the washing-up. After all that tension around the board, a reassuring “take your time” sounded rather nice for an ordinary chore too.

Some clips worked better for me than others. I found one compilation of contestant introductions a bit lame, and several guests were so quiet I struggled to hear them even with the volume up. I wondered whether nerves played a part, but I couldn’t know. The good moments were enough to remind me why I’d enjoyed watching.

My memories of Bullseye aren’t childhood memories of its original broadcasts. They belong to those early months after moving countries, when I needed work and spent a lot of time alone in the flat. It was silly company, and I still love it for that.

Watch me revisit Bullseye and its star-prize gambles.