[JMT1985]

That’s more likely to be for the Late Night Lycett Christmas special rather than Catsdown. (Or is that what you meant?)

That is what I meant - I remember someone posted images of the Christmas decorations up at his location in Birmingham, and it was filmed around a week or so after the conclusion of his series.

Cats does Countdown is always well filmed in advance - one of the advantages of being usually a non topical show

In the US, Whose Line Is It Anyway is the same, the improv game show films large amount of material and then edits them into many shows. This was how that during 2020 and 2021 they were able to fill brand new seasons of new material, when it was impossible to film with such a large studio audience due to the pandemic.

[Brekkie]

A totally faithful recreation, even their version of Rachel Reilly's pregnant!

The tiny and really low numbers/letters board though cannot be good for her. It does cheapen an otherwise faithful recreation, though they'd have probably been better off pairing the four guest comedians each show into two teams rather than three players and a guest. They could get away with just their version of Susie Dent in dictionary corner as the regular Letters and Numbers had.

[Steve in Pudsey]

I think they deliberately twisted the format to avoid it looking like a less good version of Cats Does Countdown.

In the US, Whose Line Is It Anyway is the same, the improv game show films large amount of material and then edits them into many shows. This was how that during 2020 and 2021 they were able to fill brand new seasons of new material, when it was impossible to film with such a large studio audience due to the pandemic.

I'm amazed that Cats does Countdown hasn't managed an "unseen bits" special or three. The 2023 Christmas Special definitely felt like it was very tightly edited for time and could have used a little more breathing space. A special focussing on Sean Lock bits that got cut for time would be very welcome.

[Brekkie]

They have aired a couple of compilation episodes, though not sure if these included unseen moments. I've a feeling their might even be an entire unaired episode featuring Sean Lock too.

[Steve in Pudsey]

No the compilations they showed were all previously aired clips.