Chief Content Officer at Lifted Entertainment, Tom Gould, explains the development and production process behind new ITV reality quiz show, Nobody’s Fool.
The enduring popularity of quiz shows is indisputable, but Nobody’s Fool is a unique proposition in a crowded marketplace. It’s a quiz that takes place within a strategic reality competition. And the gameplay around the quiz is unique too. In this show, it’s not about how smart you are, it’s about how smart the other contestants think you are, because the quiz – which is the centrepiece of every episode – happens in secret. Only the contestants themselves know how well they’ve done. What information they choose to share with their rivals is down to them. Can the contestants suss out who is a genuine asset and who is faking it as they try to identify the weakest player amongst them and vote them out? The question at the heart of the show is ‘can a blagger with a plan beat a genius without one?’
The original concept was devised by Christopher Potts and Jonty Nash from U.S. production company Nobody’s Hero, which has an overall deal with ITV America. Both are British and worked together in London before moving to America, and Jonty describes how in L.A. people thought that because he had an English accent he must be “some sort of genius”, which he would say is definitely not the case! Exploring perceptions of what intelligence looks and sounds like provided the inspiration for the idea behind Nobody’s Fool. Nobody’s Hero teamed up with us at Lifted Entertainment to develop the idea further and produce a proof of concept tape, which convinced ITV’s Sue Murphy and Kate Teckman to commission the series.
Executive Producer Mark Saben and Series Editor Benjamin Cook came on board when production started, along with Production Executive Alexia Antoniou and Line Producer Gemma Pope, and a casting team led by Nicole Taylor. The premise of the show meant that we had to look beyond the sort of people who would normally be cast on a quiz show.
Would people assume a posh banker who’d been to Eton must be clever? Could a clairvoyant with a Northern accent immediately be dismissed as the weakest player? We wanted to tap into and play with both the cast and the audience’s preconceptions and potential prejudices. This meant the cast also needed layers that could be gradually revealed over the course of the series, some of which had the potential to turn those perceptions on their head in interesting ways. Nicole and her team managed to deliver ten players who met those requirements brilliantly.
We needed contestants who wouldn’t necessarily know all, or indeed any of the answers. We also needed to find players whose outward appearance, accent, class, education and job could create a strong first impression in terms of how intelligent they were.
When thinking about who should preside over this game of social strategy and bluffing, we wanted to find a hosting double act who would bring humour to proceedings and set the tone. Danny Dyer and Emily Atack had become great friends working together on Disney+’s BAFTA-winning Jilly Cooper adaptation Rivals, a world we wanted to lean into and pay tribute to in the setting for our show. The fact that both by their own admission understand what it’s like to be judged and often underestimated, was another part of their appeal.
What they brought to the series exceeded all our expectations. Their relationship and ability to make the contestants and each other laugh created a brilliant dynamic which hopefully will appeal to viewers. They also seemed to genuinely relish the format. As the intrigue and deception ramped up over the course of filming, their enjoyment of the game is clear to see on-screen, especially in the Valuation Room, where the cast had to correctly identify which player had contributed the least to that day’s prize pot or risk losing half their winnings. And Emily has added another string to her bow by proving herself to be an exceptional quiz host.
The shoot, overseen by Series Director Mike Parker, took place at Knowlton Court – a country house in Kent with more than a hint of Rivals about it. The conceit was that Danny and Emily had invited the cast to their country retreat. There, they took part in daily quizzes in a purpose-built quiz pod (almost a mini-studio within the house) to build up the group prize pot. But as they only had each other’s word for how well they’d done and how much they’d won, they needed to take every chance they could outside the quiz pod to assess the competition. The group challenges, which tested their intelligence, were their best opportunity to see how well everyone performed, and the weakest players risked being exposed.
The challenges, devised by an outstanding games team led by Molly Van Der Borgh and Kate Easterbrook, were based on activities appropriate to the country house setting – a tennis match, a garden party, a duck shoot, a spa treatment. And the house itself was designed to test the players at every turn. If they wanted a morning cup of coffee, the contestants had to figure out the answer to a general knowledge question to operate the coffee machine. One day, lunch arrived in the dining room, but their cutlery was locked inside Perspex boxes, and only the players who could crack the code quickly managed to eat their food before it went cold.
With any new format, you can plan for how you think the contestants might play the game, but you never know until the cameras start rolling. The cast inevitably came into it with different strategies, and that was very much the point. A few were determined to remain honest throughout and trusted that their intelligence would win the day. Others knew they would have to use all their powers of persuasion to bluff and blag their way to victory and the prize money.
The genre blending of quiz and reality has created something that feels genuinely innovative. For viewers who love quiz shows, there’s plenty of play-along in each episode’s secret quiz. There’s also the chance to watch the contestants interacting before and after they face their daily grilling, trying to convince their rivals of how well they’ve done – something you never see in other quiz shows. Knowing more than the players know is a familiar trick for reality TV viewers, but in this context, it delivers in unexpected ways. The eventual outcome of the series surprised us all. Hopefully, the audience will feel the same and enjoy the dramatic twists and turns that unfold along the way.
Jon Creamer
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