Mornington Crescent: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Mornington Crescent is a game based on the London Underground map. It was introduced to the British public by the BBC Radio 4 programme I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. It is named after Mornington Crescent tube station in central London, which is in turn named after the road called 'Mornington Crescent' in the London Borough of Camden, near Camden High Street.

In the game, players successively name railway stations on the London Underground network (or sometimes just streets in Greater London). No player is disqualified and the first player to say "Mornington Crescent" wins. Repeatedly saying the same station is forbidden, and players cannot move if they are in 'knip'.

During play, the panellists often invoke obscure but authoritative-sounding rules and names of gambits. These "rules" are randomly conceived and the more ludicrous sounding, the better. For example "we're stuck in a Dollis Hill loop", or "once Tooting Bec has been declared, this move is not allowed unless two or more players are in Knip."

The chair Humphrey Lyttelton often introduces variants and alternative rules, for example the French version ("Chateau d'Eau"), or the King Edward Rules. For a list see this I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue page.

The game enjoys (or, possibly, suffers from) a culture of secrecy. Those in the know about the game enjoy pretending to others that all the rules are real, and that they really are in a rule book. Of course the rules aren't real – they are always made up on the spot (perhaps the only real rule is that panellists should be funny) and so the rulebook itself remains eternally elusive (or as Lyttelton has put it on the show "[the rulebook is maintained with] inimitable accuracy by the lovely Samantha, who sleeps with it under her pillow. As it now runs to 17 volumes, she is running out of pillows" – Samantha, the indescribably lovely scorer for I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue is equally fictitious).

Although technically it is possible to win by simply announcing "Mornington Crescent," that would completely defeat the purpose of the game, although this has happened at least once on air, albeit after the player concerned spent four minutes discussing the particular 'rules' they were playing by!

There is, incidentally, some evidence suggesting that in the early days there were a few simple rules, which the panellists knew and the audience didn't. Since no-one would be able to tell the difference, these rules were only loosely followed, and eventually abandoned altogether.

Two books of 'rules' and history have been published, The Little Book of Mornington Crescent (2001; ISBN 0752844229) by Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer and Humphrey Lyttelton and Stovold's Mornington Crescent Almanac (2001; ISBN 0752847295) by Graeme Garden.

Seasoned players encourage newcomers to watch a game for a few moments so that they can pick up the rules as they go along. Radio 4 once broadcast the first of a 'two part documentary' on Mornington Crescent, which gave a history of the game through the ages. The promised second part, which would give an in-depth explanation of the rules, was -- naturally -- never broadcast.

Another part of the culture surrounding the game is the correspondence it generates from listeners. Letters from (the fictional) Mrs Trellis of North Wales, who writes to express her bafflement by the game, are read out on the show.

Science fiction writer Michael Moorcock included a reference to the game in a comic book which he scripted, entitled Michael Moorcock's Multiverse. Since the comic was published in the US, the reference was clearly an in-joke for any British readers who happened to get hold of an imported copy.

In the 1980s postal gaming hobbyists invented a variant of Mornington Crescent for postal play, called Finchley Central.