Hard Spell (2004)

Country

United Kingdom

Length

2 seasons, 12 episodes

Rating

10.0 of 10 from 1 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A televised spelling bee competition for British children aged eleven to fourteen. Contestants from across the country compete in heats leading to a grand final where one champion is crowned. The show features a host who presents the contestants and a reader who pronounces the words.

competitiveeducationalyouthfullightheartedenergeticnerdytriumphantfamily-friendly

What happens

Hard Spell is a United Kingdom televised spelling bee programme for children between the ages of eleven and fourteen, presented by Eamonn Holmes, with Nina Hossain reading the words. It was first broadcast on BBC One in late 2004. Heats were held in different parts of the country leading to the grand final, at the end of which Gayathri Kumar was crowned Britain's best young speller. Notable spellers apart from Gayathri included Nisha Abraham-Thomas from Wolverhampton, Mark Jackson from Cambridge, Dominic Harvey from Bath and Sarah Williams from Penzance. All of the televised runners-up in 2004 received a signed photograph of Eamonn Holmes and other Hard Spell memorabilia. As the show was such a success, Hard Spell returned to television screens at Christmas 2005 with a different age group (11-13) but the same presenters, Eamonn Holmes and Mishal Husain. In the final, the winner was Niall O'Neill from Northern Ireland who won £10,000 worth of holiday vouchers and media equipment for his school. In 2005 the memorabilia contained a Hard Spell T-shirt, mug, pencil case, pen and a dictionary signed by the presenter. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Star Spell (2005)
• The Big Spell (2017)
• Hard Spell Abbey (2004)
• Spell Cast
• Best of Friends (2005)
• Little Monsters (2003)
• Memory Bank (2004)
• HeadJam (2004)