I tackled Joel Dommett's In With a Shout – and forgot one vital lifeline

With the memory of my Beat the Chasers experience (during which I named Charles I as the successor to Charles II) now fully repressed despite its immortal presence on the internet, I booked a ticket to Manchester's dock10 Studios to tackle a quiz show I knew very little about in the hopes of redeeming my past trivia performance – and maybe getting a selfie with Joel Dommett of Impractical Jokers UK fame.

After three hours of wrestling with Avanti West Coast's temperamental Wi-Fi and endlessly scrolling through TikTok, I made it to the set – which was preparing to welcome a batch of actual contestants who were just a few hours away from winning actual money. Paired up with ITV Grenada presenter Caroline Whitmore, we took our places behind the podium before a friendly producer walked us through the daunting format.

Much like the actual competitors, we'd be given 80 seconds to answer as many questions hidden within the three-second clips as possible, with every correct answer bumping us up the money board (which was capped at £500), while every incorrect answer would drop us down. Meanwhile, each team were given 10 opportunities to press the big red button in front of us, which would freeze the screen and allow us unlimited time to identify the clip at hand.

Unfortunately for my nerves, I was volunteered to face the dreaded yellow screens first – although it did give me first dibs of the six available categories: Dance the Night Away, Secret Santa, Cat-Egory, Sitcoms, Bunch of Flowers and Hairstyles. It won't come as a huge surprise to learn that I went for sitcoms, although the pressure was on. If I completely failed the round, I would lose the imaginary money and potentially my real job.

While we don't have footage of my actual gameplay as ITV hadn't cleared the clips for promotional purposes, I can share the eclectic range of faces I made throughout – most of which accurate convey the constant state of perplexity I was feeling with a dash of a panic and, in a few cases, relief that I'd gotten an answer right.

Despite completely blanking on Rik Mayall's Bottom – (for some reason, I could only think of the word egg throughout the clip) – and a few other sitcoms, I did manage to identify the classics, Only Fools and Horses, Gavin & Stacey, Extras, W1A, My Family, and ended up banking £300 for my team. It wasn't until after that I realised I'd completely failed to smash the red button and if I'd done so, there's a chance some of those extra titles would have left the tip of my tongue.

They didn't let me keep the money, but I did get that selfie and ultimately left with the knowledge that I could identify Jack Whitehall's BBC Three sitcom Bad Education from a three second clip of Layton Williams. While I'm not entirely sure what I can do with that information, I now know that one day, I could potentially win £300 with it.

In With a Shout airs on Saturday 8th April at 6pm on ITV1. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on.

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