Survive a five-grand grilling
Channel 4, 10pm
IN a post-truth, fake news world, TV bosses bring us the latest spot-the-imposter game.
Four people tell an extraordinary story, but only one of them is telling the truth.
An elite squad of professional police interrogators (shouldn’t they have more important things to do?) cross-examines the suspects in a confession cell.
It’s all tension and two-way mirrors as they use tactics deployed on criminals, prodding and probing in the pressure-cooker environment. They are aided and abetted by host Ellie Taylor, who mainly gasps loudly 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 walks away with 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 tell a tale of how they opted out of civilisation, first contestant Karen cannot stop laughing.
One claims they joined a cult, one says they set up an underground endof-the-world bunker, and another tells how she was silent for a year in a mountain-top monastery. Next, 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 Host Ellie are bound to stay tuned for the big reveals.