Just a quick question really.

After watching the old deal's on challenge recently, can any one tell me the series when they all started wearing dark clothing on the front rows of the studio audience?

StatsMan or Simon F will probably know.

I'm not sure exactly when the dark clothing rule was brought in. I'd imagine it was quite early on when they changed the seating arranged for the pilgrims (there are a lot less seats in the early episode and they are actually chairs rather than the long bench-like seats there are now).

All pilgrims now are asked to "wear dark clothing, at least from the waist upwards. No logos are permitted and stripes and spots should be avoided".

Anyone who dares to break these rules tends to get shoved right to the back where it is virtually impossible to be noticed by the camera.

And anyone flouting those rules tends to get ripped to shreds by Mark on warm up, as did one lad recently who turned up in a white tshirt & blue and white burmuda shorts!!

When I first visited Paintworks the dark clothing rule didn't apply for the first couple of visits. Namely the no logos rule still existed for obvious reasons.

The first visit was still in the early days and was part of the series 1 recording block. The second visit was part of the series 2 recording block but when I visited the studios for the third time I was told about in the email pack about the dark clothing rule. I suspect they brought the rule in from the third series recording block. Which was shown from late October 2006 onwards.