Telephone

Set up

Sit or stand in a line or a circle, close enough to whisper to your neighbor. Choose someone to start. That is all.

How to play

1. The first player thinks of a sentence and whispers it once into the ear of the next player.
2. That player whispers what they heard to the next person. No repeats: you pass on whatever you think you heard, even if it makes no sense.
3. The message travels down the line.
4. The last player says it out loud.
5. The first player says the original. Compare the two, then let a different player start the next round.

Making it work

The one rule that matters is no repeats. If players may ask to hear it again, the sentence arrives intact and there is nothing to laugh at. Background noise helps, so there is no need to quiet the room.

Tell players before you start that deliberately changing the message is not the game. It is funnier when the changes are honest mistakes.

Ways to change it

• Two-way telephone: start a different sentence in each direction around a circle. Somebody in the middle receives both at once.
• Race: two lines, one sentence. The line that gets closest to the original wins.
• Action telephone: everyone faces away. The first player taps the second and shows a short mime; it is passed along one tap at a time.
• Drawing version: see Paper Telephone, which swaps whispering for writing and drawing.

Who it suits, and who it doesn’t

Telephone suits children from about five, classrooms and any group stuck waiting in a line. It needs no equipment and no space. It is a weak choice for small groups and for anyone hard of hearing; for them, the action or drawing versions work better. Adults enjoy one or two rounds, rarely more.