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Metro
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
'Going on quiz shows for 25 years almost cost me my job'
Going on one TV quiz show is impressive, let alone managing to secure a spot on 12. However, a man who boasts an impressive streak on some of the biggest quiz programmes on television has revealed to Metro that his impressive hobby almost cost him his job. Jon Stitcher has appeared on the likes of Mastermind, Countdown, Only Connect and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? just to name a few. His first TV quiz stint took place in 2000 when he went on The Weakest Link, before going to the next level by starring on one quiz show a year between 2014 and 2021. The former lawyer and ex-professional poker player, who now runs the Online Quiz League, admitted that he was 'horrendously nervous' when he faced Anne Robinson on The Weakest Link. But luckily, he seemed to find a way to get past his nerves in the years that followed. It all started when he was a child who enjoyed playing Trivial Pursuit with his family, with keen quizzer eventually going on to join the Wirral Quiz League. After going on The Weakest Link 25 years ago, Jon attempted to bag spots on Countdown and Brain Teaser… before he looked into applying for The Krypton Factor, which resulted in him 'almost losing his job'. 'I was working for Barclays and they wouldn't give me the afternoon off to go for the audition,' he recalled. 'And I genuinely said, 'Well, what happens if I just go anyway?' and they said, 'You'll get sacked'. So I was like, fine, okay, so I didn't go.' Hwoever, a couple of days later, he saw that The Krypton Factor were holding another audition in Cardigg, so he rang in sick so that he could give it a try. 'Instead of losing me for an hour or two, they lost me for a whole day whilst I went down to Cardiff.' While speaking to Metro, serial quiz show star Jon Stitcher revealed his top tip for how to get onto a TV quiz show. 'To people who've asked me 'How do you get on so many shows?' I just say, when you audition, be yourself but turned up to 11,' he said. 'They don't want you to be someone you're not, but they need to see the most extravagant version of yourself. 'I think I'm naturally quite outgoing and confident, and that's a key thing for TV shows, they don't want someone who's going to sit there all nervous, and they need someone who they know is going to be comfortable on the camera.' He added that it helps to have 'something on your application form that stands out to make you a bit different'. Jon continued: 'When I was getting on every show I applied for, my job title was professional poker player, and that just jumps out. 'They must get hundreds and hundreds of accountants, and that's not a boring job but there's not a lot really to talk about with that. He noted that perhaps now that he's a company director, that might be why he's not hearing back from quiz show applications. 'It could be my age as well. I was in my 30s, now I'm middle-aged, white male, they've got plenty of people like me,' he added. 'I just kept applying for more and more shows… I did one a year from 2014 to 2021,' Jon said, who made it to the final of Fifteen to One. His main motivation for going on pretty much every quiz show you can think of was down to something very simple – he just 'loves playing the games'. But of course, having the chance to go home with a cash prize on some occasions was a brilliant added bonus. Given his experience showing off his quizzing prowess on TV, Jon had the chance to brush shoulders with some of the most prominent presenters in the UK, including the 'absolutely lovely' Bradley Walsh. Jeremy Clarkson also took the time to meet contestants on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? by coming to the green room and chatting to everyone before the show, Jon revealed, while Sandi Toksvig was able to spend time with the three finalists who made it to the end of Fifteen To One. 'It's lovely to get to see them out of their presenter role, just seeing them as the normal people they are,' Jon stated. While Jon would love to add more quiz show notches to his belt, he's hit an obstacle in his path – as he believes his past appearances on TV might be preventing him from being accepted onto more quiz shows. 'I'm at the stage now where I'm not hearing back from applications. It used to be that if you've been on shows it was a plus because the researchers knew you could do it, you'd be ok on camera and you wouldn't crumble,' he explained. 'Now I think they're looking for new faces. Because of social media, there will be comments saying, 'Oh not this guy again'.' 'With the 1% Club, I was cast on that and had a recording date. About two or three days beforehand, they rung me up and said, 'We're really sorry, we can't use you now and producers think you've been on too many shows.' So yeah it can go against you.' One time, Jon sparked attention on social media for another reason, as Mastermind viewers angrily expressed their belief that his specialist subject – The Inbetweeners – shouldn't be a allowed. 'I think what made it worse was at the time my job was a professional poker player and they put me on the show with three professionals – a lecturer, a journalist and a teacher – and their subjects were like, Leonardo da Vinci, JS Bach, and the Dreyfus Affair,' he said. 'So you've got three academics all doing very high-brow subjects, and then a professional poker player doing one of the lowest-brow sitcoms of all time.' Jon stressed that he 'didn't cheat', despite some viewers' infuriated remarks, and emphsised that he 'put in as much effort as anyone else', scoring a perfect 15 out of 15 for his questions. Then when he went on The Chase, he didn't let rude remarks that he was 'smug' bother him… considering he walked away with a hefty £12,000. More Trending ''When I went on The Chase and I won, that was amazing. A lot of the comments were saying I was 'smug' or 'such a know-it-all' so I just retweeted them all. I came away with £12,000 so a few comments weren't going to bother me,' he said. Despite his lack of success with applying for quiz shows these days, Jon isn't planning on giving up. In recent years, he's applied for Jeopardy! and The Tipping Point, and is keen to attempt Red Dwarf as his next specialist subject on Mastermind. View More » Considering he's made it this far already, we don't see why he can't achieve even more of his quiz show dreams. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Anne Robinson reveals the moment she wanted to 'shut Rachel Riley up' MORE: Free streaming service adds 16 channels, including 3 you 'won't find anywhere else' MORE: From 'selling radiators' to ghost-writing: Inside The Chase stars' lives before fame
Telegraph
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Genius Game, review: brainy, yes, but unforgivably boring
ITV has the best game show on television – The 1% Club, a series of brain teaser challenges which can be played by the whole family and should win a Bafta next month if there's any justice in the world – and now also has one of the worst. Genius Game (ITV1) is an unforgivably boring programme based on a Korean format, with tests so convoluted that even some of the players struggle to understand the rules. First up, though: why are these 11 contestants considered to have 'exceptional qualities'? We're never told. One of them has just finished a postgrad in biotechnology at Cambridge so we're not talking about the kind of dumb-dumbs you get on daytime TV, but in the first episode they just seem to be a bunch of reasonably bright people who have signed up for what turns out to be a gussied-up version of The Krypton Factor without the assault course. There are two trainee GPs, a crime writer, a forensic scientist and a stand-up comedian among them. A brief flurry of interest in a woman who announces herself as a Nasa scientist quickly dissipates when she admits that she was joking. David Tennant hosts, first appearing in silhouette and immediately identifiable by his quiff. He hams it up, Claudia Winkleman-style, and there is a Traitors -esque tone to proceedings, crossed with a bit of Squid Game. Everyone is encouraged to scheme and eliminate their rivals. Poor old Paul, a 50-something Geordie businessman, soon becomes the main target. This would all be fine – well, disappointingly average, but fine – if the challenges were entertaining to follow at home. But the first one, a game of strategy called Gold Heist, involved three rounds of attempting to steal virtual gold from three virtual vaults, with players sent to jail (not virtual, but a Hannibal Lecter-style cage in the middle of the studio) if their number exceeded the number of items in the vault, or if another player had accurately predicted which player had tried to steal from which vault. Got that? No, me neither. Perhaps it was fun to play, but it was no fun at all to watch, and seemed to go on for an eternity. Winners get a badge worth £1,000 which they can use as a bargaining chip and offer to someone else, and one player is knocked out every week. Perhaps if you stick with the series you will start to care about some of them, but at the moment they're mostly bragging about looking innocent while secretly being cunning masterminds, except with none of the charm of the contestants in The Traitors. Two players go through to an elimination 'Death Match' at the end of each episode. This was a simple, visual game of logic that was possible to play at home. More like this would make for a more enjoyable show. And a Krypton Factor obstacle course would improve things no end.
BBC News
03-04-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Belfast: Councillors call for clamp down on dog fouling
There are calls for a clampdown on dog-fouling in Belfast after more than 1,000 complaints last year but relatively few 10 fixed penalty notices have been issued since April 2023, according to the latest figures released by Belfast City councillor Ruth Brooks said "the system is broken" while SDLP councillor Gary McKeown called for a "fundamental review" of the city's strategy to tackle compared avoiding dog mess in parts of Belfast to facing an obstacle course in the TV programme The Krypton Factor. 'Absolutely disgusting' McKeown told the monthly meeting of Belfast City Council: "It's a health hazard, it's an environmental hazard and at a very basic level, it's absolutely disgusting. I am sick listening about it."I see children treading it in on their way to school or out for a walk with their parents - it's not good enough."I'm embarrassed having to go back to people saying 'I'm sorry to hear about that, that's disgusting'." Figures obtained by Brooks, after a freedom of information request to Belfast City Council, showed that there were 1,172 complaints about dog-fouling last year but, at most, 10 fines handed called for more "pro-active enforcement" of existing measures to tackle said some community events in east Belfast had been cancelled because parkland areas had so much dog council has 12 full-time dog warden posts, and park wardens are also authorised to tackle fine is currently £80, reduced to £50 if paid within 10 days.A number of councillors, including the Alliance Party's Jenna Maghie, have said that higher fines should be is understood that a maximum of £200 could be have been discussed before but not agreed. 'Catch themselves on' Sinn Féin councillor Claire Canavan pointed out that the problem is being caused by a "small minority who aren't picking up after their dogs"."People need to catch themselves on," she praised the council cleansing staff who pick up the mess that dog owners leave four largest parties on the council all raised the dog fouling issue at Tuesday evening's meeting of the full 60-member People and Communities Committee at City Hall plans to discuss the matter again later this month. Sharon Vennard, 41, lives in south Belfast with her husband and two young is becoming increasingly frustrated with the dog fouling on the family's daily walk to school which she says is a "huge issue" in the area."Recently my two-year-old came out of a shop in our local area and tripped and fell right into dog poo. "I was very concerned he would get it in his eye and it was very upsetting for him."I walk my older child to school and there have been occasions he has walked through dog poo – and has had to wear his PE shoes and his classroom assistant has had to hose his shoes down which is very embarrassing for a child." Ms Vennard said she had complained to the council twice and was told there would be more wardens in the area."But my problem is that if someone sees a warden they will lift their dog poo as they are afraid of getting caught," she said."It's more trying to catch people out who are repeat offenders who are taking their dog for a walk in cover of darkness and are not responsible dog owners or turning their back and pretending not to notice. "It gets to the stage when it's about the health and safety of children and it's very serious."
