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Jason Manford preparing to make TV comeback in new BBC1 series The Answer Run
Hopefuls will compete in pairs, with eliminations until one duo remains
JASON Manford is serving up a teatime treat – with a brand new game show.
I can reveal the funnyman is hosting BBC One’s latest quiz series, The Answer Run, which he has “high hopes” of being a hit.
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It replaces his previous show, Unbeatable, and will see contestants battle it out to win a big prize by accumulating a succession of correct answers from 50/50 questions.
Jason told me: “I’m chuffed to bits to be back on BBC daytime again with The Answer Run.
“I really feel like this is going to be one of those addictive TV quiz shows where you’re sat at home shouting at the telly because you reckon you could’ve done better.
“It’s fast-paced, full of jeopardy and requires contestants to be able to make split-second decisions.
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“But I promise we’ll have a laugh too.”
Jason is set to film 25 episodes, which will be 45 minutes long, in Glasgow next month.
And viewers will get to see them later this year.
The new format includes categories ranging from Beyonce or Barbie to Neptune or Mars, football or basketball and everything in between.
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Hopefuls will compete in pairs, with eliminations until one duo remains.
They will then have the chance to face The Answer Run one final time and attempt to take home cash they have banked during the episode.
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Jason — whose stand-up tour, A Manford All Seasons, begins in November, with tickets available at jasonmanford.com — is a huge fan of daytime TV and says particular shows become part of viewers’ routines.
He explains: “It’s a market of people who are under-represented — the audience who watch telly during the day.
“They still need entertaining, and often you almost become part of their day and routine, so I think it’s really important.”
I’m sure his new show will go down well with a cuppa.
EVE GALE got a serious case of deja vu on Love Island All Stars after being dumped from the villa prematurely – leaving her twin Jess Gale behind.
It also happened during their first stint on ITV’s dating show in 2020. Eve was this time ousted alongside Casey O;Gorman.
TIFFANY’S NERVES SO EIFFEL
EIGHTIES pop icon Tiffany has revealed that being Eiffel Tower on The Masked Singer was even scarier than making her pop debut at the age of 15.
She likened her nervousness on the ITV show to when she became an overnight sensation in 1987 with No1 hit I Think We’re Alone Now.
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The US singer said: “It did make me feel like that!
“Sometimes in my own shows I still get butterflies.
"That’s never gone away because you want to always be your best.
“I’m a very physical singer, so not being able to do that was challenging.”
Now she is up for more reality TV as it is a way to connect with new fans.
The Greatest Showman star Keala Settle was also unmasked as Air Fryer, which she claimed was like wearing “a coffin”.
The US crooner said: “You battle your own demons inside that costume.”
AUSSIE ALAN IS ON BOARD FOR WRECK
NEIGHBOURS icon Alan Dale is the big star signing for the second series of BBC Three drama, Wreck.
The actor – who famously played Jim Robinson in the hit Aussie soap – will join the cast alongside hunky actor Buck Braithwaite, with Oscar Kennedy, Alice Noakes and Thaddea Graham reprising their roles.
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The series returns after its successful debut in 2022, featuring a killer inside a duck suit picking off the crew of cruise ship the Sacramentum.
After the show’s adventures on the high seas, the second season is back on terra firma and sees the central heroes visit an exclusive “wellness” festival for millionaires in the remote countryside of Slovenia.
There, they hope to find more answers as to what was behind the killing spree that reached a bloody conclusion in series one.
I bet Alan never saw this kind of drama on Ramsay Street.
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SHOW AXE A BOOST FOR BEA
AISLING BEA says she has no plans for any more episodes of her drama This Way Up – because the dark comedy takes too much of a toll.
The actress, who is also an executive producer on the Channel 4 series, said: “I enjoyed the filming process but found it incredibly emotionally demanding and challenging.
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“I think two series is my limit.”
Starring alongside Sharon Horgan, Aisling played Aine, a young Irish woman juggling work as a teacher in London with her recovery from a nervous breakdown.
She’s on to a cheerier project now, though, and appears with Andrea Riseborough and Domhnall Gleeson in Channel 4’s new romantic drama Alice & Jack, which begins on Wednesday.
AS new hopefuls audition for Britain’s Got Talent, 2020 winner Jon Courtenay is proof the format works, as this week, he begins a tour.
Kicking off at the Regent Theatre in Christchurch, Dorset on Saturday, the musical comic will play dates nationwide through February, March and April.
HELEN’S LOOK TO DYE FOR
HELEN GEORGE sports bright blonde hair as Call The Midwife’s Nurse Trixie but the eyecatching look has come at a cost – to her locks.
The actress – currently treading the boards in The King And I at London’s Dominion Theatre – has now gone brunette and revealed the BBC period drama is to blame.
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Speaking on Virgin Radio, she said: “To achieve the right colour for the character [Trixie], my hair had to be bleached so much that it was just snapping off.
“I was like some little bald parrot and that is not the hottest look.”
I’m sure her Call The Midwife co-star and rumoured new beau Olly Rix would disagree.
STEVE’S SNAPPER CROC-ED
RUN-INS with ferocious beasts is all in a day’s work for Steve Backshall, but he admits one encounter left his knees trembling.
As he returns to TV next Monday with new Channel 5 show Killer Crocs, he told how one reptile tried to eat his cameraman, Johnny.
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Steve said: “ This was one of the only times when I’ve been really frightened.
"We’d been diving and had encountered dozens of crocodiles, all of which had ignored us.
"Then a male crocodile about four-and-a-half metres long came straight for us.
“He came right between Johnny and me, hitting the bottom and sending up a big cloud of sand.
“So I knew the croc and Johnny were in there – that was a gut-wrenching moment where I thought he’d been eaten in front of me.
“I don’t know how, but Johnny managed to get a shot of the croc.
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"To see it pass between the two of us at the bottom of this eerie swamp was chilling.”
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