A PERFECT MARRIAGE: ROCK N' ROLL BINGO

The saying goes that innovation is the vital spark of all human change, and as human beings are cultural animals their favourite games are perhaps the first to face such transformation. Ergo, in school games of football, rounders were a regular occurrence, and drinking houses across the nation would be the common homes of the phenomenon that is pub Jenga. So, with its popularity as one of Britain's favourite games assured, it is little surprise that bingo has undergone perhaps it's most startling transformation to date: Rock and Roll Bingo.

The idea need hardly be placed under the microscope to be understood, and while it is often the most simple of innovations that are the most popular, this is no different. Instead of the normal balls being pulled out of a hat or selected by a machine, rather songs are played by a DJ from CD-Jays and players match the song that is played to the name of the tracks that are printed on their bingo cards.

Of course, this does minimise the role the bingo caller plays in the game, and relies less on his or her personality to bring the experience to life. However, as pub quizzes are still as popular as ever in Britain this idea effectively marries the two forms together and can be seen as an attempt to bring the nation's favourite game further towards being bang-on-trend. Certainly it would seem that such a game would appeal more to a younger audience than to traditional bingo-goers. Only last year petitions erupted after Sudbury Council banned the caller in its local Town Hall from using such traditional bingo lingo as “Two Fat Ladies” and “Legs Eleven”, so with such opposition to a relatively trivial change it is extremely unlikely that the same supporters would condone such a massive schism in their beloved game.

Therefore, as online bingo goes from strength to strength, the time when online providers will provide a similar version of the game is surely not far behind. The variations on such a theme present themselves readily, as prizes could go up if the lyrics of the following line were added as a bonus, or similarly the year of release or chart number.

The good news for players at home – whether it be for a general night in or during one of many ever-increasingly popular bridal bingo showers – is that they are not at the mercy of a random DJ and control their own bingo games simply by creating a playlist from their mp3 players or CD collection. With such power in the hands of the players, the groundwork is paved to open bingo up further to the masses. One man's Beethoven is another man's Destiny's Child, so with such possibility for variation bingo is set to cross further boundaries than it has already.

By David Wright