GIVE US A CLUE!
Celebrity investigators JIMMY CARR, 50, ALISON HAMMOND, 47, and AMANDA HOLDEN, 51, on why they’ve got their work cut out in series two…
JIMMY
‘The panel’s relationship with the contestants is interesting, because we really want them to win and some of them have been so adorable. The standard has gone up from series one. The good singers are great but the bad singers have put so much work into their lip-synching that they’ve made it even more difficult. I think there’s going to be a lot of shouting at the telly at home.
‘With the celebrity singers, we’ve had some absolute legends on. My favourites were Alexandra Burke – she’s done the show before and it was great to have her back – and Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet, I mean, it’s telly gold, if you’ll pardon the pun!’
ALISON
‘It’s absolutely lovely being back. Paddy has definitely upped his role this year and there’s a treat for everyone at the beginning of each show.
‘When it comes to guessing the true singers from the bad singers, I have no particular strategy! It’s more difficult this year as people know the show and the bad singers are really good at pretending! ‘For some reason, I get really competitive with Jimmy. At the end of the show, he’s always like, “How many have you got right?”’
AMANDA
‘In life, you get taught not to judge a book by its cover and in this show you’re doing the opposite, but I’d say it’s 100% tougher this series. All the tricks we thought we’d nailed, like spotting someone touching their ear before they start singing or the way they hold the microphone, have gone out the window because people are really clever now and doing everything to deliberately throw us off track and win that money.
‘The celebrity singers were amazing. One of my favourites was Layton Williams, who was in the musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Alexandra Burke is phenomenal and seeing Erasure’s Andy Bell was like a throwback, because I grew up with that music.’