A former contestant on ITV‘s The 1% Club has revealed what comedy legend Lee Mack is really like when the cameras aren’t rolling, giving fans an insight into the star’s off-screen persona.
The show, which sees 100 contestants eliminated one by one as they attempt to answer questions that only one per cent of the population can guess correctly, has become a firm favourite with viewers.
Billie, who appeared on the programme in October 2023, has now told all about the experience, from the application process to how often Mack interacted with players on set.
Billie told the Express: ‘My husband and I are big fans of Lee Mack. We think he’s incredible. He’s so quick-witted that I don’t think there are many people on telly that can really keep up with him.
However, Billie explained that ‘when Lee did appear, his focus was very much on the job at hand.’
That said, when he did come onto the set, he was obviously wired for sound and a director was talking to him and he didn’t have much room for communication with anybody except for the director.’
A former contestant on ITV ‘s The 1% Club has revealed what comedy legend Lee Mack is really like when the cameras aren’t rolling
Billie, who appeared on the show in 2023, explained that when Lee did appear, his focus was on the job at hand
Billie added: ‘There wasn’t an awful lot of opportunity for him to have free flow conversation with us on set.
‘You could tell he was on it trying to just do his best, but constantly had somebody in his ear going to the next thing, onto the next thing.’
They explained that the production team had appreciated their cheeky and forthcoming answers during the application process, noting that their confidence and outgoing nature had made them stand out.
Billie also recalled that ITV had provided guidance on handling social media attention, including tips on privacy settings and safeguarding themselves from online trolling once their appearance aired.
Reflecting on their time on the show, they admitted that they had been eliminated early, around the third question, which allowed them to sit back and observe the dynamics of the set without the pressure to win.
The 1% Club players are frequently tripped up by seemingly simple questions.
A vintage episode of the ITV quiz show, hosted by Lee Mack, saw 100 contestants attempt to win a hefty cash prize.
The programme’s questions were put to the public, with the percentage who got it right determining the difficulty of each round.
This 1 % Club question tripped up players, wiping out a whopping 25 from the group hoping to win a hefty cash prize
Players could compare the sizes of the rows of empty spaces to the sizes of the visible bricks to get the correct answer, which was 12
As the name implies, the final question is the one that just 1 per cent of the public managed to figure out.
This time, it was a 60 per cent question that caught people out – causing the crowd to gasp in shock at the number of eliminated players.
An image popped up onto the big screen, depicting a brick wall with golden bricks, with some of the bricks in the middle of the wall missing.
The question asked: ‘How many bricks are missing from this wall?’
Have a go and see if you can correctly answer the easy puzzle that fooled so many.
Players could compare the sizes of the rows of empty spaces to the sizes of the visible bricks to get the correct answer.
The correct answer was 12, and a shocking 25 people answered incorrectly, causing them to be wiped out of the game and leaving 70 optimistic players remaining.
The live studio audience gasped in shock, and host Lee joined in when the number of wrong answers emerged.
It comes after The 1% Club’s return date was confirmed, with ITV announcing a huge shake-up to its format that ‘will leave the nation hooked’.
The quiz show started in April, 2022, and has since proven hugely successful, winning two National Television Awards.
The fourth series of the show, which is normally shown on Saturday nights, ended in May – but ITV has now announced it will be back in autumn, in a brand new form.
