Amanda Holden stars as the BBC’s new quiz queen in The Inner Circle. Matthew Bell finds her not in her trademark heels but a pair of furry slippers
With a note of triumph and mischief, Amanda Holden, the host of new BBC One quiz
Whether judging Britain’s Got Talent, which she has done for nigh on two decades, co-presenting the
But on
“Yeah, it is. It’s easier presenting with somebody else because you can always turn to them, they’ve got your back and you can have a bit of banter – take the mickey, share the load,” says Holden, who is talking to
“But I was lucky because there are a lot of people in the studio – six contestants and 12 for the celebrity version – so there are loads of places for me to find jokes and fun things to riff on. Doing a breakfast show every morning live has given me the confidence to think on my feet and just talk.”
Holden is a gameshow natural: funny, quirky and empathetic, never forgetting that the contestants are new to TV and prone to freeze under the studio lights when posed even the simplest quiz question. “They can panic and I’ve had to run off and give people cuddles,” she reveals.
“Watching Ant & Dec on Britain’s Got Talent being easy and familiar, making it look like nothing – you learn a lot from that. It’s better to be as natural as you can, rather than [Holden puts on a sonorous voice, which she does brilliantly] ‘adopt a presenting voice, which lots of people do, talking like this’, which really gets on my nerves.”
She recalls one BBC exec who admitted hiring her “because they liked the fact I was unpredictable and dangerous. I took it as a compliment.”
The Inner Circle tests contestants’ general knowledge and, like The Traitors, which of their fellow players they can trust. It also encourages them to spin a web of deceit about their own motives. The quiz’s finale sees the last remaining players opting to share the cash prize or backstab their opponent.
Did the show teach Holden anything about human nature? “It was quite shocking. It will be an eye-opener for everybody watching,” she says. “[Viewers will] see people using religion or children to make themselves look pure, wonderful and nice, and then doing the exact opposite of that at the end of the show when they shaft somebody. But that makes great telly.
“It’s a real mix of heart, deviance and humour. It’s got the best elements of lots [of quizzes], so it will feel familiar, even though it’s all new. Hopefully, viewers won’t mind a little mini-skirt and a heel in the afternoon,” adds Holden, who hoots with laughter.
She loved testing and tweaking the quiz in run-throughs and in a pilot show. “Being part of a process like that made it feel more organic than just walking out in high heels, reading the autocue and saying: ‘Good afternoon, I’m a quiz show host.’ It felt personal.”
“The people in the suits came and watched every moment of it but seeing them laugh at the silly things I was saying made me feel relaxed. I didn’t have to stand on ceremony – I could be myself and be natural. So many people have put so much effort into it, so you want it to work for everyone. I’d be disappointed if it didn’t.”
Would she be up for a second series? Absolutely, although she admits her unforgiving TV schedule would need to be “spread out in a better way”.
“Every job I do, I’m thinking on my feet. On the radio, I have to make it up as I go along; I made
“Can you imagine taking me seriously?” she adds, accompanied by yet more hoots of laughter.
In 2023, BBC Entertainment and Daytime put out a tender for a new quiz, which Tern TV’s Head of Entertainment David Marshall saw as the ‘perfect opportunity’ for the Glasgow- and Belfast-based indie to break into shiny floor shows.
‘We put everything into it,’ recalls Marshall, who says that the BBC had more than 120 pitches. ‘It shows that an indie with no prior quiz track record can win with a strong idea, a willing team and a lot of belief in the format.
‘We joke that it was a David vs Goliath effort – though there are two Davids, actually, myself and David Kerr, the development producer. We were up against big producers.’
The germ of the idea for The Inner Circle came to Kerr from video game Call of Duty; in one part of which players have to fight their way into a circle. The steer from the BBC, recalled Marshall, was for a ‘fun, family-friendly, play-along’ game that whipped up viewers to ‘shout at the telly’. It had to have a standout twist – keep the prize pot and shaft the other player, or share it.
‘We’re not reinventing the wheel – it has the best elements from a lot of successful formats, which we tried to make work in a nice, organic way. The Inner Circle
is not just about answering questions correctly. Trust is the currency and that’s what you’re playing for. The format taps into a lot of universal themes – trust, deception, scheming – which everyone relates to. And no episode is ever the same – it plays differently every time.’
Marshall, who in a previous job produced the BBC One quiz Impossible, grew up on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and The Weakest Link: ‘Good quiz shows need jeopardy and drama at their heart. The big issue is keeping someone’s attention for 45 minutes – you need twists and turns, which The Inner Circle has in abundance.’
The quiz is a double order; 25 daytime episodes for the week and six celebrity Saturday specials. ‘We knew it had to appeal to a daytime audience and also be super-sized and scaled-up for the Saturday night version. I think we pulled that off – it doesn’t look like a daytime show.
‘When we were recording in Glasgow, we kept getting told off by the floor manager as the studio gallery would erupt in screams and cheers for that final share or shaft moment. We knew then, that if we were reacting like this, we had something special on our hands. It has been a joy to work on, so we’d love to go again.’
Robert Duncan McNeill recalls not liking his character, Lieutenant Tom Paris, in the early seasons of Star Trek: Voyager.
McNeill played Tom Paris in all seven seasons of Star Trek: Voyager, which celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2025.
Appearing on The Transporter Room podcast with Chris Garis, Allyson Leach-Heid, and Linda Paiges, Robert Duncan McNeill frankly recalls how much he disliked the way Tom Paris was written at the beginning of Star Trek: Voyager. However, McNeill also points out that Tom “doing really jerky things” made his character’s gradual evolution more satisfying. Read Robbie’s quote below:
I didn’t like him. I didn’t like him the first season. They kept writing these things, and it wasn’t just dialogue. I don’t think they found his voice yet early on. But it was also action, what he did, the things they wrote that he did. It was like, ‘Ugh, you’re taking one step forward, two steps back.’ You’re doing some really jerky things. I don’t like this guy, why would the audience like this guy if he’s doing what he’s doing?
I was really happy that they let go of [Tom Paris’ early characterization]. I think they had this idea that Tom was like a Han Solo or a Julian Bashir. Not even Julian, he was like sweet and earnest. Tom was… he’d been around the block, he kind of had a chip on his shoulder, he was rude to people, he was self-absorbed and selfish, and didn’t have a good relationship with women. Didn’t talk about women nicely. Ugh, I didn’t like him.
But the fact that he evolved… If he hadn’t been such a hard to like character early on, I think the satisfaction of where he ended up would not have been as good. So in the end, I think it was a good thing, but watching those early episodes…
Watch Robert Duncan McNeill on The Transporter Room below:
Part of the reason for Lieutenant Tom Paris’ early characterization as a jerk was that Tom was initially based on Nicholas Locarno, whom Robert Duncan McNeill previously played in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Nick Locarno had a criminal past at Starfleet Academy that Star Trek: Voyager‘s producers felt made him “irredeemable” and led to the creation of Tom Paris.
Lieutenant Tom Paris was created with many similarities to Nick Locarno, including the actor who played him. As Star Trek: Voyager continued, however, Tom became a better person, a trusted friend to the USS Voyager’s crew, and Paris started a romance with Lieutenant B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson), which helped wash away his rotten early characterization.