You've read the comic, you've bought the mugs, now watch the quizshow, as a Viz-influenced programme hits our screens.

THERE'S more than a touch of Viz about a new late night quiz show on Tyne Tees Television. Not only is it hosted by Simon Donald, co-founder of the Newcastle-based comedy magazine, but also written by him and Viz's youngest co-editor Alex Collier.

The Regionnaires is their first project since leaving the magazine to launch a career as comedy writers. The six-part series has teams captained by Geordie stand-up Gavin Webster and radio presenter Catboy quizzed on how well they know their home patch. Guests include Libby Davidson from The Bill and Tracey Wilkinson from Bad Girls, Big Brother voice Marcus Bentley, sports commentator Sid Waddell, cricketer Paul Smith and children's TV presenter Kirsten O'Brien.

Donald was one of three school friends - Simon's elder brother Chris and Jim Brownlow were the others - who originally produced Viz in 1979 from a bedroom in his parents' Jesmond home. Intended as a one-off publication, Viz first went on sale at the Gosforth Hotel, Newcatle, at a gig by local band, Arthur 2 Stroke. It became Britain's best-selling humour magazine in 1988 and regularly sells around 200,000 copies an issue.

"Alex, myself and Gavin have been playing around with doing something for TV for a while," explains Donald, 39. "We had the idea of a regional quiz show but spent 18 months not really acting on it, just having conversations in the pub about it."

"We thought when we left Viz our plans would be for a more straightforward comedy show for national TV. We thought about the satellite channel route, but anyone can get a show on satellite in this never-ending watering down of TV content."

So they made things more difficult for themselves by aiming for a regional programme, recognising that a regional company like Tyne Tees had everything they needed. Donald had appeared recalling his childhood on the station's When We Were Kids, and realised there was a whole archive of material waiting to be used.

Donald's background comes in handy as quizmaster. "People have ribbed me all my life for being full of useless information," he says. "My father, a local historian, always drummed me full of information about the North-East. So the show is a good way of combining something he wanted me to be and something I am. We actually went to my dad for some of the questions.

"When I was a kid I always wanted to be one of the Goons or the Monty Python team. There was a period we didn't have a TV and just listened to vinyl stuff. That's how I got into comedy, and I used to write sketches."

He was involved with the People's Theatre in Jesmond as an actor for many years and always saw himself as a comedy actor - until, at 15, he started working on Viz. "It didn't take off for a while. Then I became more involved in Viz and women and drink, and theatre fell by the wayside."

He still performs, providing voiceovers for animations like Sid The Sexist and Viz computer games.

He and Collier, 23, have set themselves up as a comedy writing team under the name Blissna - a Geordie "charva" word, meaning excellent. As well as the game show, they're writing for radio and a book sending up teenage girls' romance annuals of the 1970s and 1980s.

They caught the eye of comedy agents Off The Kerb, who act for showbiz names including Jack Dee and Jonathan Ross, and have signed them up. Collier, who started at Viz when he was 15, still does work for the magazine but Donald says he hasn't worked there for a while. "I still go in and see the people. There's no acrimony," he says. "I would be prepared to do stuff, but we've been tied up with other things."

The Viz influence on The Regionnaires extends to the animated title sequences and cartoons that introduce the rounds. The series has been recorded in front of an audience who have, says Donald, responded well. "I think they felt it was a little bit of fresh air compared to all the gloom and doom around in local television. It was nice to come in and put our work in a different medium," he says.

Switching from the page to the screen presented few major problems, although it was odd that the programmes were recorded in three days rather than the months spent working on an edition of Viz. "The big difference for us is that there are so many people we had to work with. Viz is very much a cottage industry. In the 1990s, only seven people worked on the editorial team. We have had to go through many level of sub-editing in TV that we hadn't before in Viz," he says.

Donald is aware that Blissna's been fortunate in being picked up so quickly by a top management company. He and Collier are talking to them about a range of future comedy projects. "We really have to put the focus on which ones we want," he says.

"We're in the most amazing position. The majority of people who try to work in this business are hawking their work around for years, trying to get someone to listen. We have some of the biggest names in the business coming to us and asking, 'what can you do for us?'," he says.

A permanent move to London isn't on the cards. "I do love London. I wouldn't mind working there but wouldn't want to live there," he says. "We've successfully managed to be based up here for the last 25 years, so I don't see why that should change."

* The Regionnaires begins on Tyne Tees Television on Friday at 11.30pm.

Published: 01/05/2004