THE LYING GAME
Contestants must sort fact from fiction to win a big cash prize in Ellie Taylor’s show
IN a post-truth, fake news world, TV bosses bring us the latest spot-the-imposter game.
Four people relay an extraordinary story, but only one of them is telling the truth.
Then an elite squad of professional police interrogators cross-examines the suspects in a confession cell.
It’s all tension and two-way mirrors as they use real tactics deployed on criminals in the pressure-cooker environment.
They are aided and abetted by host Ellie Taylor, who mainly spends her time gasping at every declaration.
Ellie is sitting with a player, who watches the grilling and must distinguish the truth tellers from the big fat fakers. If the player picks the fibber, they win £5,000. If they are wrong, the blagger takes the cash.
The stories are pretty outlandish. “I faced down a bear to protect my friends”. “My house got swallowed up by a sinkhole”. “I lived as an alpine goat”.
As the first four people tell a tale of how they opted out of
civilisation, contestant Karen cannot stop laughing.
One claims they joined a cult, one says they set up an underground ‘end-of-theworld’ bunker, one states he lived as a goat and another suggests she was silent for a year in a mountaintop monastery.
Next, contestant Antony tries to work out who had the worst first date ever – someone who had an accident, needed mountain rescue, ended up in a heist or caused an allergic reaction with a first kiss.
Armchair detectives will stay tuned for the big reveals.