Excited by Numbers.


Watching tonight’s episode of the BBC1 game show Pointless led me to mull over a question I’ve been pondering for ages: why does the studio audience always clap and cheer when Alexander Armstrong reads out the jackpot? 

Surely no-one finds big digits that exciting. I've never cheered spontaneously after giving out my phone number.

If I’m honest, I know the answer: it’s because the floor manager tells them to. It’s supposed to add a little tension to proceedings. Being aware of this doesn’t make it any less irritating; once you notice it, it quickly starts to grate.

It’s not like everybody in the audience has a vested interest; they can’t all be related to the contestants. I could understand it if the prize was evenly divvied out.

They’re also not actually applauding anything. It’s not as if the money is sitting somewhere, waiting to be collected. The sum total only exists from the moment somebody wins it. Richard Osman hasn’t got a wodge of cash burning a hole in his back pocket.

(If he has, it’s probably unrelated.)

I’d understand it more if you saw the money - like on Bullseye, when Jim Bowen would physically count it out. There was something so sordid and cash-in-hand about that. Did Bowen fund it personally? I guess we'll never know.

If he did, he was probably Bullied into it.

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