Lee Mack is back with popular quiz show The 1% Club

We all have a favourite quiz show, whether it be an old-school classic like MasterMind, University Challenge and Family Fortunes, or a modern teatime treat like The Chase, Tipping Point and Pointless.

What connects all of these hit shows is an element of engagement. If you’re screaming out the answers at the screen in your living room, chances are it’s a good series.

When Lee Mack’s The 1% Club debuted on a Saturday night in April 2022, it was keen to encourage audience participation and get viewers at home to play along and test their own IQ, logic and common sense, while watching the contestants in the studio attempting to win a share of £100,000.

The 1% Club was an instant, if somewhat surprising, ratings hit, while its second run in 2023 proved to be even more popular.

Speaking to the Mirror at last year’s National Television Awards – where The 1% Club was named Best Quiz Game Show – Mack said he was delighted with the positive reaction to it.

“It’s very nice,” he said. “For me, because we did the pilot before Covid, it’s been around forever, but it’s new on telly.”

Sharing his insight into why the quiz has proved to be so popular, Lee issued a simple response, saying: “People love a quiz show.”

Not only has The 1% Club won awards here in the UK, the rights have been been sold to 12 countries so far – another sign that it is a strong format.

As a pre-Christmas treat, fans will get the chance to play along to four new episodes being shown on consecutive evenings this week.

For those who have never seen The 1% Club, here’s how it works:

Before each show, a group of 1,000 people are tasked with answering the same questions as the players.

The number who answer each teaser correctly then helps decide its level of difficulty.

Each episode begins with a question known by 90 per cent of the 1,000 people and ends with the trickiest of all, which only one per cent answered correctly.

One hundred contestants begin every show, but how many, if any, will make it to the end and get the chance to answer a question only one per cent of the country can get right?

Another of The 1% Club’s big appeals is that it doesn’t matter if you’re not usually good at quizzes as the questions have nothing to do with remembering facts, trivia and general knowledge. It’s all about logic and deductive thinking.

So, whether you’re aged 15 or 50, the whole family can play together.

ITV are now so confident with the play-along-at-home quiz that they have commissioned a fourth and fifth series.

Speaking about fronting the show once again in 2025, Mack said: “Let’s be honest, the fact that I haven’t accidentally given a hundred grand to the wrong person or read out the answer instead of the question is as much a surprise to me as it is to everyone else.

“I’m really delighted that ITV is risking me steering this ship once again. I can’t wait to discover more of the nation’s brainboxes.”