the Ghelani era

Next week is the second show with Sir Clement Freud, Paul Merton, Liza Tarbuck and Jack Dee, then on March 17 we have show two with Paul, Tony Hawks, Graham Norton and Sue Perkins.

After that, excluding the 40th anniversary clips show, this will be the stats for the era of the current producer (three seasons, 32 shows). I've italicised the people who hadn't appeared before she began.

Paul Merton 26
Clement Freud 20
Gyles Brandreth, Tony Hawks 8
Marcus Brigstocke, Chris Neill, Graham Norton 6
Jenny Eclair, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Sue Perkins 4
Janey Godley 3
Chris Addison, Pam Ayres, Julian Clary, Alun Cochrane, Jack Dee, Dave Gorman, Phill Jupitus, Josie Lawrence, Maureen Lipman, Maria McErlane, Pauline McLynn, Neil Mullarkey, Greg Proops, Tim Rice, Liza Tarbuck 2
Jo Caulfield, Fred MacAulay, Dara O'Briain 1

So you can see from that
* there are now just two who can really be called regulars.
* although there are lots of women on the programme, none of them are really makinga claim as a successor to Linda Smith.
* Lots of different people used and lots of people being tried.

It makes it hard to predict teams for the next season. I'm assuming there will be just 10 shows, though the last two British summer seasons have had 11 so here's hoping!