A contestant on The 1% Club has revealed what it’s really like to take part on the game show, including a trick producers use to make sure there are no empty seats. He disclosed that the ITV show keeps seat fillers ready in case a contestant decides to leave the set after being eliminated from the quiz.
The Saturday night show, hosted by Lee Mack, doesn’t have a studio audience but instead features 100 contestants who also serve as the audience. As contestants are eliminated, they are expected to stay on the set and watch the rest of the game. However, it appears that the producers have a backup plan in case someone chooses to leave after losing.
Kyle Talbot, a Leeds-based contestant who appeared on the show on Saturday night (February 15), revealed in an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk that there are people on standby for such situations.
“The worst part is when you go out, especially if you go out early. You’re in position (on set) because you’re still part of the show. You’re sat there for the rest of seven hours (filming).
“You still need to look interested, and you still need to take part with everything else as well. So can you imagine if somebody was like, ‘Oh, I’ve gone out earlier. I’m gonna go, I’ve had enough’. And you just have a blank space on the TV. But if that was to happen, they do have people there to fill in. But it wasn’t needed (on my episode).”
Kyle, 27, had first-hand experience of this. He confessed that no one wants to “go out on the first question”, but he was eliminated on the second.
“Some of the earlier questions seem a lot harder than ones further down the line,” he remarked. “The one aim going into this show from absolutely everybody that goes on to it, and I suppose everybody that watches it as well is, don’t go out on the first question. I didn’t go out on the first question, but I did go out the second.
“What people don’t realise is that you are sat there, you’ve got all the lights, you’ve got the music, the potential of winning all this money, attention, all that sort of thing.
“You’ve got your tablet and within that 30 seconds, you need to type the word to the exact spelling as well. If you, for example, put a word and put one letter by accident that could potentially be a different word, then that’s it. You’re out, even though you know that you meant that certain word, which is correct.”
Despite the live filming, Kyle shed light on the lengthy seven-hour day involved in recording the show and detailed the process: “Once you’re in there, and you’re comfortable you have a bit of a talk with the floor manager on the day. A lot of people, potentially, have never watched it either, so they get a bit of an overview of what it actually is.
“They also have a comedian that comes on to kind of settle everybody and add to the experience. That was Mark Olva. He was really funny.
“And while that’s going on you get a bit of make-up as well. I’ve never worn make-up in my life so that was an experience. Then they come round, set up all your mics, and do a sound check and everything like that.
“Once that is all done, they activate the lighting and the spotlight. You’ll see watching the show at the very beginning, the lights are off, and then lights then come on and that’s your signal to clap and it’s about to start and are ‘live’,” he explained.