PLAYING HIS CARDS RIGHT: Alan Carr on his Epic Gameshow reboot
Alan Carr’s Epic Gameshow sees five classics revived by ITV. The presenter talks to GEORGIA HUMPHREYS about his ‘lucky charm’, the future of chat shows and why he refuses to let trolls get to him
ALAN CARR made a big life decision a couple of months back. At the time, the 43-year-old comedian had amassed five million followers on Twitter.
But following the death of TV presenter Caroline Flack – who took her own life in February – he deleted his account.
“When you first get abuse on Twitter, you’re like, ‘Why are you saying that?!”’ gasps the animated star – who was born in Weymouth but spent most of his childhood in Northampton.
“And then I found I was just scrolling past it...
“(The tweets said) ‘You should die’, ‘I hate you’, ‘I wish you were dead’, and I thought, ‘This is no way of living’.
“The last bit I got, it was quite inane, just ‘You’re s***’ or something like that. And then I looked at the person’s timeline and they’d just signed Caroline’s Law about how she feels like the media should be a bit nicer (following Caroline’s death), and I just thought, ‘Well, what the f*** am I doing on this app anyway?’ I thought, ‘It just affects my mental health’.”
As well as not being afraid to talk candidly, down-to-earth Alan is a fun interviewee. He has journalists howling with laughter – especially when he lets out his own infectious cackle.
It probably helps that the interview took place before lockdown started, so we were able to chat about his latest project – a new Saturday night series for ITV – in person, rather than over video call.
Called Epic Gameshow, it sees five of the country’s all-time favourites – Play Your Cards Right, Take Your Pick, Strike It Lucky, Bullseye, and The Price Is Right – rebooted, with a different format featured in each episode.
The six-part series kicks off with a celebrity special of Play Your Cards Right, starring Ore Oduba, Portia Oduba, Eamonn Holmes, Ruth Langsford, Rosie and Chris Ramsey,
Martine McCutcheon and Jack McManus.
“I know if I’ve done something and it’s s***; I don’t need someone to tell me,” says Alan, back on the topic of social media. “But I’m really confident with Epic Gameshow. It will be really good.”
Alan – who married long-term boyfriend Paul Drayton in 2018 – is hoping that one of the gameshows gets commissioned for its own full series.
“I’d love Play Your Cards Right. The audience were just going crazy for that. It is just turning the cards over, I know it’s so simple, but it just works.”
Each of the retro programmes has been updated for modern audiences with a new, exciting endgame.
“It just gets supersized and the prize money is like £50,000. You know, big prizes!
“Some of these people are expecting a kid, they’re newlyweds, so the casting is brilliant. Your heart really goes out to them.”
Play Your Cards Right, which first aired in the Eighties, was memorably presented by Sir Bruce Forsyth, who died in August 2017 aged 89 (he also hosted The Price Is Right in the Nineties).
Is it worrying for Alan to be stepping into Sir Bruce’s shoes?
“Well, it is really. It’s so in your bloodstream, in your DNA, that I found myself going, ‘Good game, good game, didn’t they do well?”’ (Alan’s impression of Sir Bruce is brilliant, by the way).
“And then you’re like, ‘Oh no, not only are you doing his show, you’re taking the p*** out of him, and he’s died!’
“But that’s not you being rude, it’s just because we’ve all watched him.
“I feel like the rosetinted glasses are going to help me, in a way... People are going to start going, ‘Oh Brucie’, but, go back and watch some of the older ones, and I think you’ll be surprised, and you’ll see they’re better for having a bit of a zhuzh (up). You know, might be a bit better.”
Asked if he ever met Sir Bruce, Alan reveals that the beloved entertainer was the first ever guest on Chatty Man, which ran on Channel 4 from 2009 until 2016. “Then during the week, the phone rang, didn’t recognise the number, I thought it was PPI, didn’t pick up. And then he’s like, ‘Hello Alan, I loved being on Chatty Man, you’ve got a hit on your hands there’.
“I was like ‘Oh my god!’ I couldn’t believe it. And I kept it (the voicemail) on my phone until I lost my phone. So, he’s sort of been a bit of a lucky charm for me.”
Pondering whether he misses hosting a chat show, he sounds genuinely unsure of how he feels.
“I do, and I don’t. I see people like (American rapper) Cardi B, and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I would love to have her on Chatty Man!’
“But, when you’re doing a chat show, you’re always up against Graham Norton, who has the pick of the best – and then you’ve just got to really hope and pray that people have a good time. But, you know, sometimes you had c**p weeks, sometimes you had good weeks. It was Justin Bieber, Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga on one week! That’s amazing.”
He adds thoughtfully: “I don’t know... The chat show, is that still going? No one wants to talk anymore. As a format, does it work?”
One show which definitely does work is RuPaul’s Drag Race.
The UK version aired on BBC Three last year and proved to be such a massive hit that it’s returning for a second series. Alan was a rotating resident judge (sharing the role with Graham Norton), joining RuPaul, Michelle Visage and various celebrity guest judges on the panel of the reality show, in which drag queens compete against each other in various challenges.
“It’s just nice, isn’t it – everyone’s excited about it. And everyone was so negative before it even started, I was like, ‘You idiots, you’re going to be eating your words’.
“I just thought the girls were just so down to earth.”
He admits he did have his own worries that the show wouldn’t take off.
“It’s like with these gameshows; I’m like, ‘Oh god, if it dies a death, it’s because of me’,” he quips.
“But Michelle Visage says they’ve had double the applicants for this series, so I think it’s going to go up a gear.”
It is just turning the cards over, I know it’s so simple, but it just works
Alan Carr on Play Your Cards Right, which he hopes will be commissioned for a full series