Richard Osman’s House of Games: BBC Two release date and how to watch - which celebrities feature this series?

Richard Osman’s House of Games, the popular tea-time quiz show, is returning for a new series on BBC Two on Monday 5 September.

The new series is, once again, 100 episodes, so will run for twenty weeks.

Here’s everything you need to know about Richard Osman’s House of Games series 6.

What is it about? How does House of Games work?

House of Games is a tea-time quiz show hosted by Richard Osman and featuring different celebrities each week. It’s more about brain teasers and cryptic clues rather than the sort of straightforward general knowledge questions you might have seen on Osman’s other shows like Pointless and Two Tribes.

For example, the celebrities might be played the opening bars of a song, and then asked to hit their buzzer at the exact moment the lyrics begin. Alternately, they might be asked to mark the location of a particular landmark - where Trotsky was born, or where the National Mint is - on a map. There are also a number of team rounds, which range from pictionary style challenges to emoji guessing games.

Each episode ends with an Answer Smash question, where the final syllable of the answer to a written trivia question is also the first syllable of an image underneath. For example, “Who wrote this article?” might be the written question above a picture of Land’s End. (Couldn’t think of a proper example faster.)

Who is Richard Osman?

Richard Osman is a television producer turned quiz show host turned author. You’re most likely to know him from Pointless, a series he created and went on to host with Alexander Armstrong for over a decade; otherwise, you probably recognise him from panel shows like Would I Lie to You or Have I Got News for You. He’s also appeared as a contestant on Taskmaster, and hosted the short-lived quiz show Two Tribes.

In more recent years, he’s taken to writing “cosy crime” murder mystery novels about a group of octogenarian amateur detectives. The novels have proven particularly popular, often finding themselves at the top of the bestseller charts, and the film rights have been purchased by Steven Spielberg’s production company Amblin Entertainment.

He’s also 6ft 6 inches tall (2m) and in a relationship with the actor Ingrid Oliver, in case you were wondering about his personal life too.

Who’s appearing on House of Games this month?

Guests for the sixth series of Richard Osman’s House of Games for the first few weeks of November have been announced.

Week 9, which starts on Monday 31 October, will feature Sian Gibson (Murder, They Hope, Peter Kay’s Car Share), Jean Johansson (Animal Park), Iain Stirling (Love Island, Buffering), and Rav Wilding (Crimewatch).

The first of several House of Champions Weeks will begin on Monday 7 November. Former winners Laura Whitmore (host of Love Island), Tim Key (comedian and poet), Sunetra Sarker (star of Ackley Bridge) and Jamie Laing (Made in Chelsea personality) will all appear.

When does House of Games start?

House of Games begins on Monday 5 September on BBC Two at 6pm. Each episode is half an hour long.

How many episodes are in this series of House of Games?

There are 100 episodes in House of Games Series 6.

5 episodes air per week, meaning that this series will air for 20 weeks - taking viewers right up to Christmas.

When is Richard Osman leaving Pointless?

Richard Osman announced earlier this year that he was set to leave Pointless, opting instead to focus on his new novel writing career.

Though he’ll continue to appear on the Pointless Celebrities edition of the show, hosting duties on the daytime version of Pointless will be taken over by a series of guest hosts.

His permanent replacement is yet to be announced. We don’t quite know when he’ll leave Pointless, though an educated guess would put his final show at mid September 2022.

Why should I watch House of Games?

It’s a fun little quiz show, sat just at the right intersection between unusual and challenging. Worth your time if you enjoy that sort of thing - it’s good for communal viewing in particular.