Fact Hunt

Fact Hunt (2005) is a comedic TV quiz show which originally aired late at night on various ITV regions.[1] It was hosted by Al Murray in character as the Pub Landlord,[2] the character he has long played in stand-up routines and in the sitcom Time Gentlemen Please.

Fact Hunt was originally a section of Al Murray's Edinburgh stage show, where two male members of the audience were called on stage to answer questions. These were invariably chosen to be one thin and one quite large contestant. T-shirts were given to them (the XXXL given to the skinny guy and the S given to the large) with the quiz logo and made obvious allusion to the potential spoonerism "Fat Cunt", accentuated by the mismatched sizes. In typical "Pub" style, the prize was a pub meal - Chicken and Chips which was actually a frozen chicken and a bag of potatoes - the typically sexist, landlord wouldn't cook it as "that's women's work". A female member of the audience was selected to hold the prizes and encouraged to exhibit them enticingly (by both Murray and the audience) while sitting on a bar stool. The audience would shout out "Fact Hunt" when prompted.

The idea was further developed into a fictional pub quiz machine (and on-going plot device) of the same name from a sitcom starring Al Murray called Time Gentlemen Please. This programme ran for two complete seasons between 2000 and 2002 on Sky One and was the first time Al Murray's Pub landlord character was in a scripted sitcom format.

It wasn't until the success of Al Murray's main ITV show that a further spin off show wholly based on the quiz, which was called Fact Hunt.