Play money

There’s a thin line between game show host and reality chat show host. Both take the line of a detached observer, but you’re pretty sure they still reckon they’d do a better job of the task in hand than the actual ‘real’ people struggling through. A live studio audience doesn’t help matters either, whether they’re shouting “higher” and “lower” or “get the DNA test!”.

With this in mind it’s hardly a surprise to see the shark of daytime TV,?Jeremy Kyle, has stepped forward to host a brand new big money quiz show.

The format is quite straightforward for High Stakes, Kyle’s new vehicle: a player has to take six steps to win, but they have to be the right six steps and the top prize is half a million squidoodles. At each level of the game the player has to avoid certain numbers on the grid which are ‘traps’ and chuck them right out of the game. In order to help find these ‘traps’ a player can answer a clue question –?the prize being a bit of a heads up, but if you get it wrong you just have to take a gamble and pick a random number to go to – one that could have them evicted from the game.

So there you have it, essentially something similar to the end round of that ‘80s classic, The Adventure Game, minus the aspidistra and the helpful aliens. (If you haven’t seen it check it out on YouTube and you can bet you’ll find a retro T-shirt online to mark the discovery.)

“Even a vacuum cleaner was a gateway prize”

Two things strike me about this. The first is the rise in quiz shows with simple games for large sums of money. Time used to be when we would play along for a luxury holiday or a speed boat star prize. Even a vacuum cleaner was a gateway prize. Now it’s all about the cash. Whether this is down to addressing personal debt or a lack of imagination among contemporary TV producers, it seems that the aspirational life now boils down to cold hard cash rather than ‘new things’.

My second notion upon this announcement was how Jeremy Kyle was going to be sympathetic. I know I started off by likening his past telly incarnation to this one, but Ricki Lake might give you a hug, and even Chris Tarrant – who arguably pioneered the smug smile – appears on your side, it’s just the powers that be that stop him giving you those all important answers. And even if Kyle did appear to be on your side, would you want him there?

Anne Robinson set herself up as the Queen Of Mean, but still there was a twinkle in her eye. If I saw a twinkle in Jeremy Kyle’s eye I might worry he’d discovered an Austin?Powers style trap door with sharks under the ‘trap’ number on the grid. He’s just done too well out of other people’s misery. It’s like watching Mr Burns from The Simpsons sing a song – you just know there’ll be a dead gorilla in there somewhere. It’s a Hurculean task Kyle has set himself now. To be liked. Maybe it’s just not in his DNA.

High Stakes, ITV1, Tuesday 11 October