Chris Tarrant Interview

30 September 2009

Chris Tarrant might be best known for hosting the gameshow Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, but he’s now got a new show in the pipeline, Tarrant Lets the Kids Loose, which gives three- to six-year-olds the green light to fulfil their greatest ambitions in the adult world. I caught up with Chris for a quick chat…

‘Tarrant Lets the Kids Loose’ is your new show, what we can expect from it?

It’s basically about a secret camera show for very young kids. It was originally going to be an ITV show but they sent me a pilot and asked me what I thought. I must get a dozen pilots a week saying this is the new show for you, the sort of follow up to Millionaire. But this was so surreal and off the wall, I thought it was really nice and the sort of show we should be making. We used to make lots, and I think we don’t seem to have shows with kids on anymore. I mean it’s not a kid’s show, it’s for grownups too.

How does the show work, is it the same hidden camera format that we’ve seen from something like Beadles About?

What you don’t do is what Jeremy used to do, where at the end he would come and tell the contestants they have been on camera and they go “oh no Jeremy, I can’t believe it”. On this one, Mum just comes back in and says “Did you have a nice time darling, and they go back home. Then about three weeks later, Mum says “Do you know this is great we have been invited to go and see a television show down in London”.

I mean Mum and Dad were great, because we said “whatever you do it’s the biggest secret, do not tell your daughter or son that they were on telly as it kind of spoils it” and they were great about it. They just come in the audience of a great big TV show, a great big packed family audience, and so there are lots of other kids around.

There’s lots of other Mums around and I’ll be starting the links saying “There is a little girl called Samantha who lives in the Wirral in Cheshire”, and you can see their face going, god that’s funny, I live there, “and a few weeks ago they took over a hairdressing salon”, and they say that’s funny I did that. And their face, when suddenly up on the screen comes the film with them on, is just a picture.

So it’s the confidence they have?

They have been so sweet and uninhibited and also fearless. We obviously have had to have people all round them, there are chaperons disguised as hairdressing assistants, and there are people all over the place. So basically they go off and we then have cameras all around them, which they can’t see, because they are those little tiny things.

So we have had as many as fourteen cameras on one shoot covering every angle, and Mum and Dad are watching from usually somewhere like the next room or something. We’ve got a great big video screen and Mum’s just watching what’s happening, as well laughing, and the kids just take over.

I mean they just run these places. They are handling money and they haven’t a clue about money, someone has given them a fiver and they are giving them £50 change, and all this stuff, but I mean it is sweet.

Where any of them naughty on set?

No, but we did do a shoot in the hairdressers. We had a little four year old boy that took over a beauty parlour for dogs, you know those sorts of dog parlours, it was chaos! There were dogs running everywhere and he’s got water running everywhere and in amongst it all, it just amused me, he just kept singing all the words of Frank Sinatra, and you think how do you know that when you’re four years old? And it’s like ‘even when I’m old and grey’, you know he’s ‘I want to be the way I do, because you make me feel so young’. He knew all the words of that, there are dogs running everywhere and he’s just completely cool.

What about when you do the reveal at the end are they totally shocked?

Yes, complete shock. Initially just like that’s amazing ‘I had no idea’ sort of thing. It’s just a brilliant moment. At the end we then chat to Mum and some kids have gone very shy by then, although really they have all of the confidence in the world. The kids are great though, they are just tiny - I spent most of the show on my knees.

So how old is the youngest?

The youngest is 4 and the oldest is 6. We had a little autistic boy in charge of a garden centre for the day, we had a kid in a golf pro shop, and we had a four year old that took over a museum.

We had a four year old take over blockbuster so the day was very sweet. My favourite, well not my favourite, but the one that tickled me the most was a little girl who became a DJ for the day, proving that being a disc jockey is not very difficult.

It’s the sort of show we used to make. I used to love Michael Aspel doing ‘Childs Play’ - that was a great show. They keep bringing back stuff from way back when, and you think why don’t you bring back things like Child’s Play or Small Talk, Ronnie Corbett used to know and all that, and just conversations with kids.

How do today’s kids, compare to kids from the 1970’s then? Is there any difference?

You can’t tell, it was such a different environment, there were kids running around covered in custard, and sort of hitting each other over the head with rubber hammers and all that stuff really.

The younger generation now get this sort of label, that kids are horrible and all out of control. But, these kids up to the age of 5 are really very nice, positive people. I don’t know at what point it goes terribly wrong, but with this show I just felt really proud of it at the end. I thought what a nice show!

I have ‘Millionaire’ as my main sort of bedrock and we’ll go on doing that for at least a couple of years, so for me it’s just nice to do just something else. So as long as I can do something like this kids show or I can go off and film polar bears or I can do some radio and stuff, and sort of keep other strings in my bow working, then it’s good.

This show was a hoot though to make, I really enjoyed it and I didn’t expect it to be as much fun as it was. I thought it was quite a nice show, and when we did it I just loved it. And of course, all the little girls are falling madly in love with the all the little boys. Some of them who were so sweet; you just want to take them home.

So obviously people know you from ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’, are there plans to stick with the show still?

Oh god yes. I just literally go in again next week and we will record some more, we have just done some more for the rest of September. It just seems to carry on and on. If you said to me back in 1998 that I would still be doing it when we go into 2010, I would say “are you having a laugh or what?” There was no way it was suppose d to last that long.

It’s just such a brilliant format that’s the reason why it works. It’s shown in 115 countries around the world, we have done over 600 in this country, we have given away over 60 million pounds, we even had Slumdog Millionaire, the Oscar winning movie. The achievements of ‘Millionaire’ are just beyond anybody’s expectations, we all thought it would do okay but no-one expected this.

I still enjoy it, I sat there last week with my suit on, looking at some complete stranger and I am actually sitting there thinking to myself that I still get a buzz out of wondering what are you like? How brave are you? How intelligent are you? How stupid are you? How risky are you prepared to be? And all that, I mean I still find it fascinating.

So, who is more demanding - the celebrities or kids?

I think celebrities actually, although, the interesting thing about doing a ‘Millionaire’ celebrity is that, it doesn’t matter how successful these guys are, you know, and how confident they are in their working life.

I mean when they sit in that ‘Millionaire’ chair, most of them are absolutely genuinely terrified. I mean Paul O’Grady was in bits, he barely could come on, he said “oh god, what am I doing here?” Jonathan Ross, I mean there’s a guy who is very confident, he said “this is the scariest thing I have ever done in my whole life”.

Have you got a copy of the board game at home? Is it something you play around the house?

No I haven’t actually; I think I may know the answers. I still get letters from people randomly saying, “I have got the CD rom and I have won a million pounds, where’s my cheque? I think “Sod off, read the small print on the back of box”!
I’ll tell you one thing I do. You know the pub game, the ‘Millionaire’ pub game? I quite often I do this: I was in a pub in Cardiff a few weeks ago and if somebody’s on it, I just tap them on the shoulder and lean over and go “actually mate that one is B,” and they go “No, well, bloody hell it’s you!” It’s really spooky!

So going back to ‘Tarrant Lets the Kids Loose’, what’s your best childhood memory?

I had a great childhood, I love my Dad to pieces and I just had a great time. Probably the most formative thing was at the age of four my Granddad took me fishing. That actually became a major part of the rest of my life.

A little bird told me you are very into fishing, is that something that you do to relax?

I’m probably the finest fisherman you’ll ever talk to, serious business. I have just come back from Russia, two weeks ago.

If you had the opportunity to set up a business when you were a kid or do a challenge or a task, what would of you have done do you think? If it wasn’t sort of entertainment, maybe you would have been a fisherman?

When I was kid I always wanted to be either the captain of the England cricket team or I wanted to be a river bailiff. I just thought it would be great; I would get paid to go fishing all day. I now know enough river bailiffs to see that it’s not actually like that at all; it’s actually really hard work. You’re cutting weed all day and all that.
But I still think, as a kid that would have been great fun.

What other projects are coming up for you? Is there anything else in the pipeline?

I have actually, I have got a very serious radio contract coming up, but I can’t talk about it, it’s all a bit secret squirrel. But I’ll happily come back and talk about it when it’s all confirmed, but we are doing the stuff all at the moment, it will be good actually.

Where is your favourite place in London?

Where do I start? Do you know where I love? St. James Park. I remember all those years when I used to come in early in the morning with Capital, you would get there just as the light was coming up, about 5:30, and you saw all the blossoms.
I always used to go down there like a bat out of hell with my head sticking out the window thinking, this is good I’m alive. It used to give me a real rush before I started work. It’s a beautiful place, it’s a beautiful park, I just think we don’t use it a lot; we don’t use our own city properly. It’s like the river, and we don’t use the river properly. Yes, St. James is probably my favourite place.

Tarrant Lets the Kids Loose starts on Sunday 4 October at 6pm only on Watch – Sky Channel 109, Virgin Media 124.

It’s basically about a secret camera show for very young kids. It was originally going to be an ITV show but they sent me a pilot and asked me what I thought. I must get a dozen pilots a week saying this is the new show for you, the sort of follow up to Millionaire. But this was so surreal and off the wall, I thought it was really nice and the sort of show we should be making. We used to make lots, and I think we don’t seem to have shows with kids on anymore. I mean it’s not a kid’s show, it’s for grownups too.

How does the show work, is it the same hidden camera format that we’ve seen from something like Beadles About?

What you don’t do is what Jeremy used to do, where at the end he would come and tell the contestants they have been on camera and they go “oh no Jeremy, I can’t believe it”. On this one, Mum just comes back in and says “Did you have a nice time darling, and they go back home. Then about three weeks later, Mum says “Do you know this is great we have been invited to go and see a television show down in London”.

So it’s the confidence they have?

They have been so sweet and uninhibited and also fearless. We obviously have had to have people all round them, there are chaperons disguised as hairdressing assistants, and there are people all over the place. So basically they go off and we then have cameras all around them, which they can’t see, because they are those little tiny things.

So we have had as many as fourteen cameras on one shoot covering every angle, and Mum and Dad are watching from usually somewhere like the next room or something. We’ve got a great big video screen and Mum’s just watching what’s happening, as well laughing, and the kids just take over.

I mean they just run these places. They are handling money and they haven’t a clue about money, someone has given them a fiver and they are giving them £50 change, and all this stuff, but I mean it is sweet.

Where any of them naughty on set?

No, but we did do a shoot in the hairdressers. We had a little four year old boy that took over a beauty parlour for dogs, you know those sorts of dog parlours, it was chaos! There were dogs running everywhere and he’s got water running everywhere and in amongst it all, it just amused me, he just kept singing all the words of Frank Sinatra, and you think how do you know that when you’re four years old? And it’s like ‘even when I’m old and grey’, you know he’s ‘I want to be the way I do, because you make me feel so young’. He knew all the words of that, there are dogs running everywhere and he’s just completely cool.

What about when you do the reveal at the end are they totally shocked?

Yes, complete shock. Initially just like that’s amazing ‘I had no idea’ sort of thing. It’s just a brilliant moment. At the end we then chat to Mum and some kids have gone very shy by then, although really they have all of the confidence in the world. The kids are great though, they are just tiny - I spent most of the show on my knees.

So how old is the youngest?

The youngest is 4 and the oldest is 6. We had a little autistic boy in charge of a garden centre for the day, we had a kid in a golf pro shop, and we had a four year old that took over a museum.