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High Stakes
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Drama · 2001

High Stakes

Jeremy Kyle hosts a British game show where contestants solve cryptic clues to avoid traps on a numbered grid for up to £500,000.

Starring Jason O'Mara· Richard Wilson· Jack Shepherd
Overview

Jeremy Kyle fronts this short-lived ITV quiz that turns a studio floor into a minefield. A lone contestant faces six rows of seven numbers; hidden among them are one-to-six traps that must be sidestepped by decoding cryptic clues such as “Avoid the number of pennies in a British shilling before decimalisation”. Ten clues are available, each recited blind to Kyle, who can be asked to unpick the wording. Step on a trap and the game dies: leave empty-handed before Stage 3, or drop two prize tiers after it. Survive a row and the money jumps from £1,000 to £2,500, £10,000, £25,000, £100,000 and finally £500,000, with the option to bail or raise the stakes each time. If every clue is burned, Sudden Death triggers and every trap wakes at once, forcing the player to mark out safe squares and traps until the row is solved or their balance is shredded. Granada’s Studio 12 housed the 60-minute recordings; eight episodes aired between 11 October and 20 December 2011. A U.S. pilot for NBC, shot the next day with Mark McGrath and a million-dollar top prize, never progressed beyond its single trial show.

Production Details

ITV1 / 1 Season / 6 Episodes / 2001

Main Cast

Jason O'Mara as

Richard Wilson as

Jack Shepherd as

David Walliams as Stephen Clay

David Cann as Pearce

Eileen Pollock as

Brian Shelley as Photographer

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Kip Ford
Kip Ford
TV Critic & Editorial Director
Kip Ford is Editorial Director at TV Reference. His encyclopedic knowledge spans every era of television history, with particular expertise in British and American drama, crime, and the golden age of network TV.