Would you trust this man to give you the answer to a £1m question?
‘God help them if they ask me’
STUMPED contestants on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? will now be able to ask for help from a rather unlikely source - Jeremy Clarkson.
The revamped ITV game show is returning this Saturday for a week of 20th anniversary specials, with Clarkson replacing original presenter Chris Tarrant. And it will now include a fourth ‘lifeline’ – Ask the Host – alongside the traditional options of 50/50, Phone a Friend and Ask the Audience.
Clarkson will not have seen the questions in advance and contestants will not be required to heed his advice.
Indeed the ex-Top Gear presenter, 58, warned players hoping to navigate all 15 questions to £1million that his general knowledge is not quite as up to speed as his driving.
He said: ‘If the contestant chooses that lifeline, they get to ask me if I know the answer. God help them … If it’s 1970s prog rock music, I probably will. If it’s anything other than that, I probably won’t.’
A second new twist will allow contestants to set their own ‘safety net’. This is the amount which, if they successfully reach it, they are guaranteed to take home – no matter what happens next. But if they make a mistake before reaching it, they either go home with nothing or see their winnings fall to their previous safety net.
The first ‘safety net’ is £1,000, which they reach after answering five questions correctly. Originally the second safe harbour was £32,000 but in the seven new episodes players can decide their own, between £2,000 and £500,000.
This week, perhaps doing a little research ahead of his latest role, Clarkson attended the play Quiz in London’s West End, about the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? cheating scandal.
In 2001, Major Charles Ingram scooped the jackpot after planting accomplices in the audience to cough at the correct answers.