Judith Keppel

Beating the Wet Blanket

I am not an avid television watcher, so I did not tune into Who Wants to be a Millionaire? for about a year, but when I finally did, like nearly half the nation (19 million viewers at its peak) I was gripped. At the time I was also rather poor and thinking of going to live in France. Night after night, in an atmosphere vibrating with tension, huge sums of money were being won on questions that were no harder than Trivial Pursuit, and the germ of the idea of trying to get on began to lodge in my mind. ‘How vulgar!’ said my inner Aunt Agatha. And I would read about the 5,000 telephone lines which were open 24 hours a day, the tens of thousands of people trying to get on and one man on the programme said he’d rung 400 times. ‘Pointless and hopeless’ said my inner Wet Blanket. But night after night, as people jittered in the hot seat and walked off clutching cheques that would change their lives or, maddeningly, muffed easy-peasy questions, I subdued Aunt Agatha and the Wet Blanket and launched my campaign.

My memories of my time in the hot seat are blurred. It passed in a flash and even now it seems completely unreal. I remember waiting in the wings to go on and Chris Tarrant bouncing up and down like Tigger; then the feeling of diving off a high board and plunging into the arena to a warm bath of lights and applause; but once in the chair feeling completely isolated, alone with Chris and my thumping heart in a pool of light and the audience reduced to a murmur in a dark background. Then the sums growing larger, the murmur getting louder and more restless, the tension so taut that after my ‘final answer’ answer to the million-pound question had gone orange and then GREEN, came a roar like at a football match as the audience erupted out of their seats.

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