Imagine being on national television and having to make a decision that was worth a million pounds. Now imagine handing that decision over to Jeremy Clarkson.
It sounds like some clammy anxiety dream you might have the day before a life-changing job interview, but it isn’t. This Saturday sees the first in a seven-episode run of 20th anniversary Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? specials, and it’s almost certain that, for some poor sap, the unenviable scenario above will become reality. With the new Ask the Host lifeline, contestants will be betting eye-watering sums on whether the answer to a question is actually swimming around in Jeremy Clarkson’s fuzzy little bonce, or whether he just thinks it is. This is because Jeremy Clarkson will be that host. And, mark my words, this is going to make for superb primetime TV. Clarkson is perfect for the job.
Allow me to explain. Millionaire ... was always going to come back to celebrate its 20th birthday in some form, but most assumed it would be Chris Tarrant handling things. When it was announced the Top Gear motormouth would be a the helm instead, it was eyebrows, not hopes, that were raised. I mean it’s Jeremy Clarkson, for God’s sake. Him. That bloke. A man who’s most famous these days for punching someone in the face because he didn’t have his dinner ready and then convincing Amazon to pay him millions of pounds to run around with James May and Richard Hammond. To find someone more divisive on British TV you have to follow the appalled gaze of Susanna Reid. But for Millionaire’s semi-comeback to make any kind of sense in 2018, it had to make changes. Big ones. The introduction of a new lifeline is all well and good, but it’s hardly the boot-to-the-bottom rejuvenation the format needed. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? was crying out for a new angle. An injection of compelling, addictive, can’t-look-away hatewatch potential. Enter: blandman. Enter: Jeremy Clarkson.
During Tarrant’s tenure as host, and in addition to inventing that infuriating long pause thing which now takes up half the runtime of every show ever, the Tiswas pro was an encouraging, avuncular, only faintly disappointed ringmaster. Even when some feckless dolt hit a duck on a question about what colour oranges are or something, remonstrations from Tarrant were relatively gentle. This was before Anne Robinson made the “media personality being an arse to the general public” trope fashionable, and certainly before Simon Cowell hoisted his belt buckle up between his nipples and weaponised it. They were mean by design. Tarrant wasn’t.
While it’s highly unlikely Clarkson will be ostentatiously cruel for the sake of it, you can’t imagine he’ll be anywhere near as patient with a gormless contestant as Tarrant. This new Millionaire … will basically be a study of an extremely wealthy man who thinks he knows everything becoming increasingly incensed by poor people who’ve had the temerity to come on a quiz show to demonstrate that they don’t. You can almost see the vein of swallowed rage throbbing in Clarkson’s temple. His forehead will be pink, chapped and sore from facepalms by the end of the first episode, and I give it 5/1 odds that he loses it completely by episode four. That 20 seconds of silence before saying “ ... is the correct answer!” is going to be literal torture for him, because, for the first time in his career he will be contractually obliged to shut up.
Like him or loathe him, Clarkson does know a thing or two about taking a creaky format and twisting it into something new that appeals to an audience far wider than its originally perceived remit. Braying, sycophantic Clarksonian audiences would make it harder for people to cheat by coughing, so a blokey The Grand Top Who Wants to Tour a Gear-ionnaire hybrid isn’t ever going to happen. But a more playful, pantomimic tone would fit the show like a glove. Clarkson knows when and how to play the role of cartoon baddie and, if he chooses to here, his engrained, holier-than-thou smuggadoccio could be superbly put to use.
With desperate contestants now being forced, at the absolute end of need and with gnawing dread in their hearts, to Ask the Host, Clarkson’s unwavering belief in his own opinions will at some point almost certainly ruin innocent lives. Not only will this make Millionaire ... wildly entertaining in a voyeuristic sense (and allow us to witness whether Clarkson is able to experience the human emotions known as “humility” and “guilt”), it will reposition the Millionaire … host as the enemy, making us side with the contestants much more than we would if they were just playing for enough money to pay off their mortgage and go on a rubbish cruise. It could give the show an antagonistic narrative that’s been sorely lacking since quiz shows such as Only Connect, Pointless and The Chase prioritised a form of gentle chumminess that’s made them successful, yet casually inessential.
Let’s give Who Wants to Be a Millionaire its villain. And let’s agree that, if he chooses to run with the idea, Jeremy Clarkson is the ideal man to portray that heel, in all its punchable glory. In fact, the only person better suited would be his sometime-nemesis Piers “I know Donald Trump” Morgan. But perhaps the producers agreed that this would be taking even hatewatcing a step too far.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? starts on Saturday at 9.15pm on ITV