Twenty years after it first appeared, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is back for a brief, week-long anniversary run on ITV —with only a few small amendments to the near-perfect original formula. Along with 50/50, Ask the Audience and Phone a Friend, you also get the option to Ask the Host. Given that the presenter is now Jeremy Clarkson (replacing Chris Tarrant) this is an option as risky as it is amusing.
As Clarkson cheerfully explained in the first show: ‘If it’s 1970s prog rock I’ll probably know the answer. If it’s anything other than that I probably won’t.’ The first contestant to test this theory was flummoxed by a question about which county cricket club is based at the Oval. Clarkson declared that he hates and despises cricket more than any other sport except perhaps golf. But then helpfully ruled out Hampshire for geographical reasons, and hazarded he had a vague idea — 60/40, he reckoned — that it was more likely to be Surrey than Middlesex.
Despite the help of this unexpectedly correct guess, the contestant didn’t get even close to the million-pound mark.
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