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Fully Booked

1995 British TV series or programme

Fully Booked, later retitled FBi, is a British children's television series produced by BBC Scotland and broadcast from 22 April 1995 to 23 September 2000.

01Format

Series 1-3

The first series is presented by Zoe Ball and Grant Stott, and set in a fictional hotel. The presenters were joined by actor Paul Brophy, who appeared as a series of comic characters (such as 'Jan Van der Vall', 'Les Vegas' and 'Wee Alistair McAlistair'), and by a large puppet, a talking Highland cow named Morag who was the hotel's receptionist.

The second series had Ball being replaced by ex-Neighbours star Sarah Vandenbergh, due to the former's promotion to co-hosting Live & Kicking. Stott, along with Brophy's characters and Morag, all returned. This series was not broadcast live but was 'recorded as-live', meaning that it was recorded in one session with no editing and broadcast as if it were a continuous live show (though without any live interactivity). This format was also used for the third series.

Due to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in the early hours of 31 August 1997, the edition of Fully Booked recorded for broadcast that morning was postponed, ultimately airing as part of the CBBC morning schedule on BBC Two on 2 September at 7:30am.

Series 4-5

The fourth series had a new logo, title sequence and set introduced, along with a remix of the theme music. The presenters and characters of the show's previous incarnation were all removed, with a new presentation team consisting of Chris Jarvis, Gail Porter and Tim Vincent. The show continued to use the magazine format, with guests, games, features, inserts and music; however, the 'hotel' gimmick was largely dropped in favour of relatively straightforward magazine presentation.

The fifth series continued in this new format, but with Gail Porter having decided to quit kids' TV, Kate Heavenor was brought in to replace her. Heavenor had previously been presenting programmes for BBC Choice, and was one of the first presenters to graduate from a digital BBC channel to a show on one of the mainstream terrestrial channels.

The show gained a reputation for allowing alternative bands to perform alongside the mainstream pop acts, and booked groups including Electrasy, Shed Seven, Catatonia, The Dandys and St. Etienne to appear during this era.

Series 6

The sixth and final series was replaced by a new live series. A new studio set, title music and graphics were introduced to tie in with the retitled name FBi.

The show was still hosted by Kate Heavenor, but Chris Jarvis and Tim Vincent were not involved, and were replaced by Vernon Kay (previously a presenter on digital channel UK Play) and former Boyzone member Keith Duffy.

The show had a similar mixed-magazine format to its predecessors, but aimed to increase the level of live interactivity by encouraging viewers to take part in the show via the internet, email, text messaging and telephone. Viewers were given the opportunity to take part in games and features and submit questions for studio guests.

02Transmissions

SeriesStart dateEnd dateEpisodes
122 April 199516 September 199522
221 April 199615 September 199622
327 April 199721 September 199722
426 April 199819 September 199822
525 April 199919 September 199922
622 April 200023 September 200023
Watch videos about Fully BookedExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Fully Booked, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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