Channel 4 delighted gameshow fans when it brought back ‘The Million Pound Drop’ last year, albeit with some rather large changes.
The biggest saw the prize fund reduced by a whopping £900,000 – but with very good reason, as the show went to weekdays for a 12 week run, and was renamed ‘The 100K Drop’.
After proving to be just as successful as its primetime counterpart, Davina McCall is back again to hand out more life-changing sums of money (drop permitting), and ahead of the second series, the presenter revealed her favourite secrets and anecdotes from filming the hit show.
I only said ‘The Million Pound Drop’ once in the 60 shows we did for the last series...
At first, it was the ‘K’ that was freaking me out because I wasn’t saying ‘pound’ any more, but I’m used to it now.
They were just about to chuck the set and they thought they’d go back and ask Channel 4 one last time if they wanted to bring it back...
Channel 4 had a think about it and they said yes, but would put it in daytime with a lower prize fund. The set got dusted off, which was amazing, but what’s great is that usually with daytime, you can’t afford an expensive set with all the lasers and stuff, but we still had it all. So for a daytime show, it looks really classy with all the bells and whistles.
Despite the lower prize fund, it’s still as exciting...
I wondered if it would be as dramatic, but the cash is still in big wodges, as the notes went from £50 notes to £10, so it’s £2.5k in a wodge, which you can do a lot with.
I was quite nervous about going to daytime...
I wondered if it would be as dramatic, but when you’re there playing with real money, you can feel it and smell it.
We’ve got quite young viewers compared to other daytime shows...
It is quite a competitive market and there are a lot of other shows that are entrenched and popular, but somehow, Channel 4 has attracted a younger daytime viewer, as other shows skew a lot older. It’s a great thing and we didn’t know that would happen, so that was an added bonus for us.
It’s actually not the life changing money that I love most about the show...
It is the relationships. I love watching them. Of course I want them to win money, and it is such a treat for me when they do, but when you’re recording four shows a day, I would go nuts if it felt too samey, and every show is different.
You get all different types of relationship, and for example, you’ll get a work relationship and think, ‘you guys don’t know each other well enough’, because you need to be able to say, ‘no, you’re wrong’ – you can’t really do that with your boss! Siblings are good for that reason, and sometimes they bicker, or couples. Sometimes they will be couple goals, then other times you’ll be thinking, ‘oh my god, she’s so bossy, he’s so demanding of her’. So I love watching how those relationships pan out.
It takes seven weeks to film a series of ‘The 100K Drop’...
We shoot up in Manchester and do four shows a day, and I try and do three days a week. It’s a bigger commitment than ‘The Million Pound Drop’, as that just used to be two days a week because it was just a Friday and Saturday night.
I always have a chat with the contestants before so they are not to nervous about meeting me...
I don’t want that to be a barrier. They then come up onto the set and have a little play, look at the money just to see what it looks like because that’s quite intimidating and sometimes people can freeze when they see that much money.
My top tip is to really think if ‘not’ is in the question...
All the contestants who film on one day of filming sit together in one room, which I think is sort of terrible and brilliant. The producers go in and give them ‘the chat’, which is all about the stuff you know has been a stumbling block for people in the past. So if we use the word ‘not’ in a question, you need to really start thinking. That’s so confusing the ‘not’ thing – the questions will trip you up.
‘The 100K Drop’ airs weekdays at 4pm on Channel 4.
