page_title: Mornington Crescent (game)
section_title: Gameplay on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
hierarchical_section_title: Mornington Crescent (game) / Gameplay on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
caption_attribution_description: (L-R) Ross Noble, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Humph, the producer, Graeme Garden and Barry Cryer during a 2005 recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue at the Edinburgh Fringe
context_page_description: Mornington Crescent is a game featured in the BBC Radio 4 comedy panel show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, a series that satirises panel games.
  The game consists of each panellist in turn announcing a landmark or street, most often a tube station on the London Underground system. The aim is to be the first to announce "Mornington Crescent", a station on the Northern line. Interspersed with the turns is humorous discussion amongst the panellists and host regarding the rules and legality of each move, as well as the strategy the panellists are using.
context_section_description: The objective of Mornington Crescent is to give the appearance of a game of skill and strategy, with complex and long-winded rules and strategies, to parody games in which similarly circuitous systems have evolved. The rules are fictional, and its appeal to audiences lies in the ability of players to create an entertaining illusion of competitive gameplay.
  Humorous variations to the rules have been introduced to games. Humphrey Lyttelton would describe special rules to apply to that session, such as "Trumpington's Variations" or "Tudor Court Rules", so that almost every episode featuring Mornington Crescent introduced a variant. In one of them, first introduced in North Yorkshire, a player whose movement is blocked is considered to be "in Nidd" and is forced to remain in place for the next three moves. This tends to block the other players, putting them into Nidd as well and causing a roadblock. In one episode, every player ended up in Nidd and the rule had to be suspended so that the round could continue.
  Over time, the destinations named by the panellists expanded beyond the Underground, in accordance with various regional expansions of the game. ISIHAC is recorded around the United Kingdom, and the game is occasionally modified accordingly. There have been versions in Slough and Leeds, as well as one in Scotland, played during the Edinburgh Fringe arts festival and a 2016 recording in Glasgow (where the name was changed to "Morningside Crescent") and another variation played at recordings in Wales (called "Morgantown Crescent"). In one episode, recorded in Luton, panellists named locations as far afield as the Place de l'Étoile in Paris, Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg, and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. However, a move to Luton High Street was ruled invalid for being too remote. In other episodes, an attempt was supposedly made to expand the territory to Manhattan (via Heathrow and JFK) but there was some disagreement as to whether or not the New York City Subway system was suited to the game. References have been made in various episodes of ISIHAC to international versions of the game, including "Mornington Croissant", supposedly based on the Paris Métro, and "Mornington Peninsula", the Australian variant. At least one full game of Mornington Croissant was played on air.
  A regular feature that introduces Mornington Crescent is a letters section which begins with the chairman's comments ("I notice from the sheer weight of this week's postbag, we've received a little over no letters" and "I see from the number of letters raining down on us this week that the Scrabble factory has exploded again"). The selected letter each week is invariably from "A Mrs. Trellis of North Wales", whose incoherent letters usually mistake the chairman for another Radio 4 presenter or media personality. "Dear Libby," (she writes), "why oh why ... very nearly spells YOYO", or "Dear Mr. Titchmarsh, never let them tell you that size isn't important. My aunt told me that, but then all my new wallpaper fell off."
caption: Panellists taking part at a BBC Radio recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
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