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Monday and Tuesday Evenings, 7:00pm Channel Five Hosts: Jeremy Beadle, Richard Morton Interesting Fact: Jeremy Beadle has only four digits on one of his hands

Well, if the people of America are clever enough, fast enough and have the guts they could have won Ben Stein's Money for a while now, for it is very popular over there. Ben Stein, for anyone who doesn't know him which could be most of Britain actually, is in fact far too intelligent for his own good, I would imagine. Look: see the link left and down a bit and have a look yourself.

Channel 5 seem to know when they're on to a good thing (see Fort Boyard) so they used their heads and thought 'Hmm, why don't we do a British version of Win Ben Stein's Money? We could give away a half decent cash prize as well, given that it comes out of the main hosts appearence fees' and so they decided to give it a shot. And which celebrity gets to gamble his cash... Jeremy Beadle!

Yes Jeremy Beadle. Continually confused with Jeremy Beatle by pre-school kids, Jeremy has hosted much practical joke hilarity shows such as Game For a Laugh, People Do The Funniest Things and of course his most famous two Beadle's About and You've Been Framed. A lot of people class him as a bit of a git, actually. So it may surprise you to hear that Jeremy has the general knowledge the size of a very large tree, which has been grown on top of the Empire State Building. He's put his name to several reference books, apparently. In You've Been Framed he invited people to send in their home videos, "Gon on, bundle it off to Readle" he would say. Sadly he was misunderstood and people just bundled Beadle but when you wear a beard I suppose it's expected.

And with such a towering power of knowledge to host and play, who should partner him as co-host but none other than Richard Morton of, yes!, Move On Up fame, one of the most irritating shows on television. It's an interesting idea but does it work?

The answer to this rhetorical question is an emphatic 'sort of'. You see Richard is actually far better on this then he ever was on Move On Up but although he fronts about half the show he doesn't have the presence - yet - of Mr Beadle himself.

OK then, the set is very Roman with monitors everywhere, very Laurence Llewlleyn-Bowen, basically, and probably took the same amount of time to design and make, too. On the left are the contestants and their podiums. The middle is taken up with a wall including the readout of how much of Beadle's cash there is left, on the right is the hosts podium and further right still s the bank of monitors showing the catagories to all and sundry.

For the first half of the show Jeremy hosts whilst Richard introduces the contestants and reads out the subject catagories for round one. In Round One, questions are worth between £10 and £30 each with a £10 bonus question for the player who buzzes in and answers correctly. Whoever gets the main question correct gets to pick the catagory for the next question.

The catagories are these: stupid. Generally they involve really bad puns or pithy quotes such as "Abba go at this one", sometimes filled with innuendo "No Doctor, I said remove my Spectacles" and sometimes really silly: "If you're dead you're missing a huge part of your life." The titles offer a very tenuous link with the question about to come up (which they can't buzz in for until the whole question has been read out) so for example "Abba go at this one" was "In which country did the Battle of Waterloo take place?" After a question has finished, another catagory comes in to fill it up.

The first round is timed and when the time's up the player with the least money of Beadle is out. Neatly, Jeremy 'picks up' the cash from the players readout and then 'throws' it back into his bank, normally accompanied with "you know, I just hate doing this...". Nice!

After the break, Richard takes over as host because in order to stop the players from winning his money Jeremy himesf becomes... a contestant! The format is basically the same as in Round One except that Questions are worth between £40 and £100 each and there are no bonus questions. Jeremy himself doesn't earn money but due to the timed nature of the round he merely blocks the contestants so they don't get their hands on it. Obviously, Jeremy has no prior knowledge as to the nature of the questions from this round onwards. Although he usually puts up a good fight it always seems that he almost gives the first couple of questions away. When the time's up, the player with the least amount of Beadle's money is out and his cash is taken away from him.

That leaves just the best contestant and Beadle then to go Under Pressure. Both players get one minute to answer the same ten questions. If the player gets less right answers than Beadle then they get the cash won from the game. If they tie, the player gets the cash plus £200 and if the player beats Beadle they win the full whack, they win all the unwon money left in the Bank.

The player is given a choice as to whether they go first or second and in one of many nice touches the player's booth is dressed up to look like a dungeon whilst Beadle's Booth is very sophisticated: statuette, books, portrait etc. The player who plays second has to wear headphones whilst the first player plays and the result isn't revealed to the second player until the end, although whilst the second player is answering his questions we can see the first player listening to the second'd responses by a frame in a frame shot, along with what they scored. The players don't know how much they have scored until after their minute. It's almost tense and exciting.

But. But, but, but.

Jeremy is just too damn nice.

Surely part of the fun of winning someone else's money is that you could kid yourself into thinking that deserve to lose it because they're a complete git. Jeremy on the other hand regularly congratulates contestants when they get difficult questions right even though it's his cash, well, appearence fee that their winning. He even admits to questions that players get right that he didn't get himself when looking through the first round questions beforehand, inviting several cries of 'Whoo!' from the audience. He banters with the other contestants in Round Two. In short, on the basis of this show alone it is difficult to dislike him really.

Which is a shame because if it was fronted by an arrogant big headed git it would have been far funnier. As it is it is merely entertaining. Now, I haven't seen Win Ben Stein's Money (and if you want to correct that please feel free to mail me) but if Ben Stein puts on a pretence of being an arrogant bastard then I can imagine it being very interesting to watch.

And consider this: this show is original in so much as the host plays for his own money. Now take that innovation away. What have you got? A two-a-penny quiz. Think about it.

Verdict: 6/10 - this mark is perhaps cautionary and it may be subject to change in the future. It's good, but I'm not sure it's must see TV.