VIRGIN Radio Breakfast Show host Chris Evans has revealed the hit TV programme he turned down presenting.
The broadcaster was speaking with The Office co-creator Stephen Merchant on today’s show when Noel Edmonds cropped up in the conversation.
Stephen explained: “One of the first times I got a little bit starstruck is I first joined the BBC as a trainee and I was walking around the doughnut at the BBC and coming the other way, Noel Edmonds.
“I think he might have had Cuban heels on, I’m not sure. He had an attaché case. I thought, ‘What are the ideas in there? I bet there’s some quality in there. I bet there’s a Blobby spin-off’. I was a massive Edmonds fan.”
The comedy writer and actor then praised Edmonds’ ability to make long-running gameshow Deal or No Deal a national TV institution.
He said: “That guy, the fact that you could keep that going day in, day out of people opening boxes. I mean, only Edmonds could do it. It’s extraordinary.”
Chris then revealed the show could have been very different if he’d agreed to present it.
“I was offered that show,” he said Chris. “Thank God I turned it down.”
When Stephen responded, “you’re extraordinary,” Chris quickly clarified that he wasn’t blowing his own trumpet, rather making the point that fate intervened and everything worked out as it should.
Chris explained that production company Endemol offered him the job without the need for an audition or pilot episode, but the former TFI Friday host never entertained it.
He said a DVD of the format lay on his coffee table “for ages” and remained unwatched.
“I wasn’t interested,” said Chris. “No, not for a second. It’s not what I do and Noel did it, it brought him back and he’s one of my heroes. It’s a genius show anyway.”
The pair then laughed about Noel turning the act of opening a box containing a mystery amount of money into a spiritual process that tapped into each contestant’s intuition.
Noel hosted the programme for 11 years between 2005 and 2016 before it was shelved by Channel 4.
The format barely changed in that time with 22 contestants all given a red box, containing an unknown some between 1p and £250,000 in value, at random.
A chosen player then has to select which of their co-stars’ boxes they want to open, hopeful of avoiding big money sums as they go
At intervals, the banker makes the player an offer for their box, which they can decide to take in exchange for their sum or play on until the very end where they will walk away with the mystery amount they were originally allocated.
The programme made a comeback in 2023 on UTV with Stephen Mulhern at the helm.
Listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with The National Lottery on Virgin Radio UK, weekdays from 6:30am