Strictly embargoed until 00.01 Tuesday 1st September 2020
Who Wants to be A Millionaire? Jeremy Clarkson Press Pack Interview
The one and only million pound quiz is back for a brand new series.
Hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, six contestants all want to become millionaires, but do any of them have what it takes to walk away with the top prize?
How did you find filming this new series of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? with the new socially distanced restrictions? JC: “For the first programme we filmed, it was a bit strange to be honest. You say things that you think are funny, and there’s mainly silence. Maybe a little laughter but not what you normally expect. I then realised when filming the next few episodes, it’s better to just talk to the people like you’re in a phone box and it got much easier. It’s quite a lonely existing out there anyway, even when there is an audience. The audience for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is always in the dark so you’re not always aware of them being there. The show is really about one person, in the spotlight, demonstrating how much general knowledge they have, or in some cases, don’t have.”
Do you think there was less tension on the contestants without the audience being there? JC: “No. As I’ve said, it isn’t about the audience really on our show. It isn’t a comedy show and you’re not asking them to react in a particular way. Of all the shows that have traditionally had an audience, it’s probably one of the least affected. I mean, it’s weird from where I was sitting in programme one, but I quickly got used it. When we film another series, I might be surprised to have the audience back!”
The biggest change for the show is we had to replace the Ask The Audience lifeline with two chances to Phone A Friend. Where you pleased Production didn’t suggest two chances to Ask The Host? JC: “I’d have had a coronary if they’d suggested that we let contestants Ask The Host twice. It’s great to Ask The Audience and it’s nice to have four different lifelines, but when you don’t have an audience there really is nothing you can do about it. That’s what we had to do because of COVID 19 and this is just where we are.”
We have someone who goes all the way this series and win’s £1,000,000, how did it feel watching it unfold? JC: “It was like having the Encyclopaedia Britannica sitting opposite me. As they pointed out, there were a couple of questions where they lucked out. They simply knew the answer. It was just one of those lucky things. Like the first million pound winner Judith Keppel, she knew about Eleanor of Aquitaine. She’d just happened to have been to that part of France a year before and therefore knew the answer. And this contestant had a couple of those moments. But it’s genuinely staggering to look at someone who has a normal sized head and then within that head, they have every single fact known to man. It’s Google, in a head. You just wonder how a head can be normal sized and have that much information in it.
Are you surprised that someone had the guts to chance answering the fifteenth question? JC: “It’s a massive jump all along the game. It’s a jump when you go from £2,000. But £500,000 riding on that last question, in fact more than that as they would have gone down to their safety net. You’re risking loosing a life times earning on knowing one thing. That’s the joy of this show. I just don’t know if I would ever have the balls to do it. So I’m always staggered when people do take risks. Delighted but staggered. And it was fantastic when this contestant took the ultimate risk on the final question.”
Did you know the answer to the £1,000,000 question? JC: “I did not. Even though I had read up extensively on that subject matter only five months earlier for something that we were doing for The Grand Tour. We did a 90- minute programme on that exact subject a few months earlier. I’d read countless books on it. It has gone in one ear and out the other for me. But it’s gone in their ear and stayed there.”
What else do viewers have to look forward to this series? JC: “Well, obviously the £1,000,000 winner steals the series. But what I can say is we had so many good contestants and we’ve given away a lot of money this series! We had some very, very, very good contestants. I mean very good. And then some absolute dunderheads, which is what people want! This series isn’t very grey. They are either very, very good or very, very bad!”
Do you have a favourite quiz show master of all time? JC: “Bob Holness obviously. ‘Can I have a P please Bob?’. He was actually the second man to play James Bond! So he was not just a quiz show host, he was Bond! He played the character of James Bond in Moonraker on the radio in 1956. I used to love Blockbusters. I watched it when I was growing up. There wasn’t that many quiz shows on when I was younger, it was more The Generation Game. Ask The Family, I used to like that.”
Obviously life has been very different for many people lately, how have you found the last few months? JC: “I’ve been making two TV series, running a farm and doing the actual farming, and writing three newspaper columns. Oh and doing Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? I’ve been busier than I’ve ever been whilst being marooned on my farm. I do miss London, I don’t miss Heathrow Airport.”
In lockdown, everyone became a little quiz obsessed and played quizzes with friends. Did you? JC: “James May, Richard Hammond and I hosted a quiz in lockdown to raise money for the Felix Project – getting food to people who can’t get out or can’t afford it. So we did a general knowledge quiz. The contestants had to be honest as we couldn’t see what the answers were, they told us how they’d done. I couldn’t believe how honest people were – people said ‘I didn’t get them all right’. They could easily have said they did! We wouldn’t have known but people were honest.”
What were James May and Richard Hammond like at hosting a quiz? JC: “James took a long time to reading the questions out, as you can imagine. Richard Hammond looked at the words as if he was seeing them for the very first time!”
Have you learnt a new skill in lockdown? JC: “I learnt how to become a shop keeper. We’re selling everything now – jams, chutneys, honey, cakes, potatoes. I’ve become a beekeeper as well! So I have a quarter of a million bees and a shop! As if I wasn’t very busy, that’s just given me something else to do. I even made some candles the other day out of the beeswax!”