Pointless co-host Richard Osman will no longer be a feature of the show as he is replaced by Sally Lindsay. Osman, who has been a feature of the BBC quiz show since it began, announced earlier this year that he was quitting.
He will continue to appear on celebrity specials of the show, and is continuing to host House of Games. In April, Osman announced he is stepping back from hosting the show after almost 13 years to “concentrate on writing”.
“Richard has had to put more time into being a superstar global best-selling author which is so annoying and so inconvenient and thoughtless of him,” Armstrong joked.
“He still does the Saturday shows so he is still around and I still get to see my old friend. We’ve got a rotating roster of exciting guests and its very lovely, we get guests to come in for 11 shows and just as they’re finding their rhythm and it’s all going really well they go out and the next comes in.
“It’s been really exciting, so far we’ve had five guest hosts, Sally Lindsay, Lauren Laverne, Alex Brooker, Konnie Huq and Stephen Mangan.”
Osman was not originally intended to be Armstrong’s co-presenter but after filling the role as part of a demonstration laid on for the BBC, executives asked him to continue for the first series. He was the creative director at production company Endemol when he did the demo.
The programme moved from BBC Two to BBC One after a successful two years.
Pointless sees teams of two competing for a cash prize by finding correct but obscure answers to general knowledge questions.
Sally Lindsay is an actress and television presenter known for her roles as Shelley Unwin in Coronation Street, Lisa Johnson in the Sky One comedy series Mount Pleasant and Kath Agnew in the BBC sitcom Still Open All Hours.
She stood in for Warwick Davis when he took a break from the ITV quiz show Tenable.
Richard Osman told Pointless co-presenter Alexander Armstrong how “lucky” he feels to have worked with him, when Osman’s final daytime episode of the BBC gameshow aired.
Osman took a moment to praise his “lovely” co-presenter, telling Armstrong: “I was just in an interview, and they always ask about Pointless at the end of it, they always say ‘and how’s Pointless and what’s Xander like?’ and I always say how lovely you are.
“And it occurred to me that I don’t tell you in person often enough. So I just want to say how lucky I am to work with you.
“I always think after the end of interviews, I must tell Xander in person, which I never do. So now I’ll tell you on telly.”
A visibly touched Armstrong said: “That’s the nicest thing in the world. And I’ll get an opportunity, I hope, to tell you the same thing.”
Jokingly, Osman replied: “Well, if it were true. It only works if it’s genuine.”
Osman took to Twitter to reiterate his tribute to Armstrong, and alongside a clip of the touching moment on the show he wrote: “I will still be on screen for a while in repeats, but yesterday was my final ever episode of daytime #Pointless after 12 years.
“Only Xander and I knew that at time of recording, so I wanted to give him a heartfelt message."
In a tweet posted in April, Osman said he was leaving the show to “concentrate on writing”, and he expressed his excitement at getting to watch the show “as a viewer”.
His debut novel, The Thursday Murder Club, was published in 2020 and became a bestseller, with global film rights bought by Steven Spielberg’s production company Amblin Entertainment.
A sequel, The Man Who Died Twice, was published last year, and his third novel, The Bullet That Missed, is expected in September.
