Game show hosts: Jake Yapp and Julie will be performing at Studio 55 (in Centrale) on July

There’s none of this Jim Bowen “This is what you might have won!” 1970s game show malarkey for Inside Croydon reader Mark Vaughan, because he and a guest have nabbed a pair of tickets for one of the hottest shows in town, Jake Yapp’s Cornershop Showdown, which is coming to Croydon in a little over a week.

Cornershop Showdown is part of the 2026 Croydonites Fringe Festival, five nights of cutting-edge comedy, cabaret, spoken word and other acts.

Mark Vaughan is a paying subscriber to Inside Croydon, and so was eligible to enter our prize competition – one of the benefits for those who support our headline-making journalism.

Mark knew all the answers to our 1976-themed competition, based on a year when when Jim Callaghan took over as Labour Prime Minister from Harold Wilson, when Michael Holding skittled out England at The Oval in a Test cricket “blackwash”, and when the country sweltered in a record-breaking heatwave.

The quiz answers were:

During the famous 1976 summer heatwave, what did the government ask the public to do to conserve water? Answer: Share a bath with a friend or neighbour.

If you were treating someone to a fancy, high-class dinner in 1976, which starter were you almost certainly ordering? A: A Prawn Cocktail.

Which entirely silent “pet” became a massive craze in 1976, despite literally just being a pebble in a cardboard box? A: The Pet Rock

What chocolate bar, similar in size to a Twix, had a layer of chopped peanuts and was re-introduced to the UK in 1976? Banjo

What new confectionery was launched by Rowntree’s in 1976? Yorkie bars

If you were a kid in 1976, you were likely begging your parents for a ‘Stretch Armstrong’ action figure. What was he famously filled with that allowed him to stretch to four times his size? Liquidised rubber

You can expect loads more along these lines in Cornershow Showdown. 

Yapp has taken his love of 1970s gameshows and used it to create Cornershop Showdown – a new, live and “highly interactive” gameshow where members of the audience compete for appalling prizes.

Yapp’s bringing his latest show (suitable for 16+) to Croydon for the Croydonites Fringe Festival, where he will be performing Cornershop Showdown at Studio 55 (in Centrale) on Saturday, July 4.

Yapp has taken the lampooning skills he honed making Radio 4 in Four Minutes and his takedowns of Sunday Brunch and This Morning for Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe and applied them to game shows “in an unflinching but affectionate send-up”.

“If people are not particularly enjoying being in 2026 right now, this show gives them an hour off, letting them travel back in time to 1976, where we can all enjoy the simple, uncomplicated and innocent fun of entertainment like The Black and White Minstrel Show, or referring to women as “dolly birds”… before realising quite quickly we’d quite like to get back to 2026 as fast as humanly possible please,” Yapp says.

It’s 10 years since Yapp last did a full-length live show.

“I wouldn’t have returned to live performing if I hadn’t created this show. I have always struggled with the one-sidedness of stand-up – I’ve never been comfortable with monologuing to an audience in a somewhat dictatorial way.

“But this show is all about play – it’s a game that everybody gets to play together.”

You can follow Jake Yapp and “the lovely Julie” on their Insta:  @cornershop_showdown

• Tickets for all shows at the 2026 Croydonites Festival are selling fast. Don’t miss out: book yours now by clicking here

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