Saturday night television provided a truly jaw-dropping moment as a lone contestant on ITV's The 1% Club managed to outsmart all his rivals and walk away with a life-changing £98,000.
A Stunning Victory Against the Odds
The dramatic climax unfolded when host Lee Mack presented the four remaining players with the final, fiendishly difficult question. The premise of the show is to answer logic and reasoning puzzles that become progressively harder, with those in the final rounds representing the top one per cent of thinkers. The ultimate challenge was a mathematical head-scratcher: 'What is the lowest number to have the same value as ten times the number of letters in its name?'
With just 30 seconds on the clock, the pressure was immense. While three contestants faltered, Joshua O'Brien was the only one to crack the code. The camera captured his incredible reaction, his hand flying to his mouth in sheer disbelief as Lee Mack confirmed he had answered correctly and secured the enormous £98,000 prize.
Cracking the Code: The Answer Revealed
For those playing along at home, the solution was the number 50. Host Lee Mack carefully explained the logic: the word 'fifty' contains five letters. When you multiply that number of letters by ten (5 x 10), you get 50, which is the number's own value. This elegant solution left many viewers in awe of the clever construction of the question.
The show's format, which encourages audience participation, has been widely praised. Social media platform X was flooded with reactions during and after the broadcast. One viewer exclaimed, 'The 1% Club is one of the very few terrestrial TV shows I watch at the minute it's so good.' Another noted the entertaining mix of contestants, while a third shared a humorous family anecdote: 'As if my 8 year old granddaughter got that right and I didn't #embarrassing #1percentclub.'
A Winning Formula for Television
The popularity of The 1% Club was recently recognised at the National Television Awards, where it won the award for Best Quiz Game Show. Lee Mack, the show's witty host, expressed his delight. 'It's very nice. For me, because we did the pilot before Covid, it's been around forever, but it's new on telly,' he said. 'People love a quiz show.'
Mack also joked about the responsibility of hosting, quipping ahead of the 2025 season, 'Let's be honest, the fact that I haven't accidentally given a hundred grand to the wrong person... is as much a surprise to me as it is to everyone else.' He added, 'I'm really delighted that ITV is risking me steering this ship once again. I can't wait to discover more of the nation's brainboxes.'
The 1% Club continues to air on ITV1 and is available to stream on ITVX.
