User Reviews

Avalon Television are well known for their range of successful British sitcoms, but the production company have scored a major success in recent years with their quirky, comedy game show format Taskmaster for UKTV's comedy orientated channel Dave. As well as already clocking up 10 series in the UK and having an (somewhat watered-down) American version of the show made it was announced earlier this year that the BBC had commissioned the team behind Taskmaster to create a family-friendly take on the show for BBC One. The result is The Button.

Taskmaster features comedians competing against each other to complete zany challenges set by Greg Davies' Taskmaster and his assistant Alex Horne. The Button features five families from across the UK competing against each other to complete zany challenges set by a talking button sited in the living room of each of their homes and voiced by Horne.

The simple format works well here with all five families being filmed by fixed-rig cameras in their homes as they have to keep an eye out for the button changing colour from green to red to signify the start of a challenge - you can almost hear the viewers at home shouting at their TV sets for Dad to put down that book because the button has changed colour unnoticed. The challenges are simple enough but with plenty of opportunity for amusing epic fails. Horne's interaction with the families is full of banter and just the right amount of sarcasm to keep things light without being nasty.

Broadcasters are always on the hunt for good, family, prime-time programming and production companies are of course keen to create formats that can be exported to multiple countries around the world and The Button looks like it hits both those targets by providing a simple viewing pleasure on a Friday evening. More please BBC.