Iconic snooker game show Big Break is returning to screens after 24 years, with Paddy McGuinness and seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry set to present.
Originally airing on the BBC from 1991 to 2002, each episode features three teams of a contestant and a professional snooker player.
Various rounds see contestants handle questions from the host, while the professional players take on snooker-based elements.
The new, ‘re-imagined’ BBC Two iteration of the popular show will play alongside BBC Sport’s popular snooker coverage.
Paddy, 52, and Stephen, 57, will be joined by pro snooker players from across the globe, hoping to help contestants bag the cash prize.
Paddy said: ‘I am absolutely delighted to be a part of Big Break. It is one of those shows everyone knows and loves so to be hosting it alongside legend Stephen Hendry will be something special. Bring it on!’
Iconic snooker game show Big Break is returning to screens after 24 years, with Paddy McGuinness (pictured) and seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry set to present
Originally airing on the BBC from 1991 to 2002, each episode features three teams of a contestant and a professional snooker player (Stephen Hendry pictured)
Seven-time world snooker champion Stephen added: ‘Big Break was a unique mix of trick shots and great entertainment and I can’t wait to be back at the table and bringing this incredible show to a whole new audience and who knows, we might inspire the next generation of snooker players to get into the sport.’
Controversial comedian Jim Davidson, 72, was the original host of the iconic snooker-themed game show. He co-presented with snooker legend John Virgo, who acted as the referee and trick-shot expert.
At its peak, the show attracted nearly 14 million viewers on Saturday nights and ran for 10 series, producing over 200 shows.
However it was cancelled in 2002 due to a decline in popularity and competition with over Saturday shows.
Jim paid tribute to John after he passed away in February aged 79.
He told GB News at the time: ‘He was a great bloke. Ironically, I’m down at Ustream Studios today with the editors, put in a package together for John, who was going to come on my 50-year anniversary TV special we’re doing, alongside you guys as well.
‘Of course, now, the editing is going to turn right into a completely different thing. I spoke to him last week and he was looking forward to coming along. We were going to cut together some film of me and him getting it all wrong.
‘He was a great bloke. He is a great bloke, wherever he is now. I got a call from his beautiful daughter, Brooke-Leah, who told me the bad news.
‘Of course, she’s devastated and in shock and went into some detail. But the bottom line is he was a great guy. I got on brilliantly with him. Everybody loved him.’
John Virgo and Jim Davidson pictured during the show’s original run
Virgo spent 18 years as a professional and reached the World Championship semi-finals in 1979, when he also won the UK Championship.
He retired in 1994 and was later inducted into the World Snooker Tour hall of fame for his success on the baize and his work as a broadcaster.
Jim has been the subject of numerous controversies over the years.
Last year, he claimed the ‘BBC want to erase me like Pol Pot’ after the broadcaster refused to sell him the rights to shows he’d previously hosted.
Jim was a king of Saturday night television in the nineties, earning a reported £1.5million a year.
He stood in for previous host Bruce Forsyth on The Generation Game when he was ill in 1994, before taking the gig full time from 1995 to 2002.
His reign was characterised by a more lively and chaotic style, introducing characters like Mr. Blobby and comedy sketches.
But in September 2007, Jim was a contestant in the reality TV programme Hell’s Kitchen in which he was accused of homophobic bullying towards TV presenter and openly gay contestant Brian Dowling. The comedian asked Dowling, ‘Are you on our side?’
Speaking about the incident on The Criminal Connection Podcast, Jim showed little contrition.
He said: ‘The next day I thought “f*** this, I’m going home.” I phoned the producer who used to be a runner for me … I said I’m leaving.
‘He said “We want to speak to you anyway because what you said to Brian, the conversation you had, would upset viewers, there would be complaints.”
‘I said “well, edit that be out.” If you think it’s going to upset the public, surely you have a right to edit that bit out. I said f*** it, I’m off.
‘They didn’t edit that bit out – they edited it to make it look worse. They threw me under the bus. I didn’t actually call him a ‘shirt lift’. Come on where does it end.
‘I had 18 months on bail and I went straight in and won Big Brother. I don’t think there’s any room for me in anything like that [I’m A Celeb]. I’ve got my own TV station now so what do I care.’
In 2013, Jim was arrested as part of the controversial Operation Yewtree police investigation into sex abuse allegations. He faced no further action.
Speaking on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories in 2018, he said he was ‘terrified’. He said: ‘I won’t now have a conversation with a woman in a room without someone else there. I need to protect myself, I’ve been through the hell. I’m easy to accuse.’
In 2018, the comedian was accused of a hate crime after telling the Serbian sister-in-law of Tory MP Andrew Bridgen a joke about novichok in a top Conservative club.
He was accused of telling Ksenija Pavlovic that as a Serbian she was a ‘poodle’ of Russian president Vladimir Putin and complicit in the Salisbury nerve-agent poisonings.
Friends of the comedian denied this version of events as they told The Mail on Sunday at the time he was merely joking that he ‘felt like drinking novichok’ after talking to her.
Jim called his 2023 tour ‘Not Yet Cancelled’ but in 2024, Channel 5 made a documentary looking at his career called The Cancellation of Jim Davidson.
