Five Minutes to a Fortune

Five Minutes to a Fortune is a British game show, which aired on Channel 4 from 6 April 2013 to 5 May 2013 and was hosted by Davina McCall. It offered contestants the chance to win a top prize of £50,000 (or £100,000 for celebrity specials). The show aired weekdays at 5:00pm but was unable to generate high ratings to compete with ITV's The Chase and BBC's Pointless, both of which air roughly in the same timeslot.^[1]

Format

In the studio stands a 15-foot (4.6 m) hourglass containing tokens which resemble coins, representing £50,000 (or £100,000) at the start of the game. When the contestants enter the studio, they each decide which role they will take on throughout the game – one contestant (dubbed the "Game Player") plays through all the five rounds and must give five correct answers to complete each round; the other contestant (dubbed the "Time Keeper") decides which category the Game Player will take on at each stage, and also how much time the Game Player has to complete the round before the hourglass turns and the money starts to drain away.

The Time Keeper has the choice of seven (out of several) vague categories to choose from at the start; they include: Animal Lover, Big Eater, Bookworm, Celebrity Spotter, Couch Potato, Film or History Buff, Globe Trotter, Movie Goer, Music Mad, Politically Active, Showbiz Fan, Sports Fan/Nut, Telly Addict, Trivia Junkie, Well Read, Well Travelled and Wordsmith. There are 27 different games played in the first series.

Rounds

All the rounds follow a similar layout – the Game Player must give five correct answers to complete the round, and has however much time the Time Keeper allocated, to do so. An example of the game in each round is also given before the start. Often the rounds have unconventional ways to give an answer – for example, a photograph of a celebrity is shown, and the Game Player must spell out the surname of the celebrity using chemical elements – the correct order may be "Helium, Argon, Manganese, Manganese, Osmium, Nickel, Darmstadtium" for Richard Hammond. The process is repeated as many times as necessary until five correct answers are given. The Game Player is allowed to pass as many times as they wish, however there is a limited question bank for each round so if a player passes excessively they will eventually run out of questions and any passed questions will be repeated. The answers to any questions that are passed are revealed once the round is completed.

If the Game Player exceeds the allotted time, the hourglass will flip (starts turning at 0:10 seconds) and the money will start to drain out of the hourglass. The Game Player continues to play the game until they gives a fifth correct answer, at which point the game stops and the hourglass ceases to drain. If all the money drains out during a single round, this is called a 'Crash Out' and the game is over.

The Time Keeper can allocate as much time as they like from the five minutes they are given at the start of the game, but are advised to allocate more time if they think the Game Player may struggle on a round, or less time if they think the Game Player will find the round easy.

The Game Player is not allowed to confer when the Time Keeper is selecting a category or allotting time, or when the Game Player is playing a round, but the Time Keeper has one other role to play – they are in charge of the 'Emergency Stop' button, which they may press just once throughout the whole game – pressing the button immediately stops the round and shuts down the hourglass, if they think the Game Player is struggling a lot with the round. What follows is the "Emergency Game" – another game is randomly chosen from the remaining categories and is played with the same time limit as the game in which the button was used to stop. Any money that has drained out during the game in which the button was used is lost, as will as any money drained out during the replacement Emergency Game.

At the end of the round, the money that fell through the hourglass is jettisoned (dropped) and counted, and the remaining money is left in the hourglass for the next round. If the contestants did not lose any money in that round, however much time was left on the clock is lost.

Final game

At the end of five rounds, the contestants switch places, and the Time Keeper is in charge of giving their five answers. The sixth and final round is played as a Top Ten round. The Time Keeper is given the remaining two categories (or one if the Emergency Stop was used), and after selecting a category, is shown a board with ten numbered spaces, which is a blank list of the top ten of a particular group of things. The Time Keeper must name five of the ten missing answers to win the contents of the hourglass. Davina will reveal roughly how much time it will take to empty the remaining coins in the hourglass. As soon as the question is asked, the hourglass turns over and the money begins to drain away at the rate of around £200 every second, meaning the whole hourglass will drain away in around four minutes. As soon as the fifth correct answer is given, the hourglass shuts down and the contestants win whatever is left as prize money.

To keep the money in the hourglass, contestants must work as the perfect team to complete five challenges in just five minutes. To take home the cash they'll to be quick thinking and have nerves of steel, because if they run out of time the hourglass will turn and their money will start to drain away.^[2]

Production

The show is recorded in Studio 8 at BBC Television Centre. Contestant auditions took place in London, Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle and Edinburgh.

The hourglass is the creation of Julian Healy and Scott Fleary.

International versions

The French channel TF1 is the first international broadcaster to launch a local format of the show. It will be called Pas une seconde à perdre! (Not a second to lose!) and hosted by Estelle Denis and Gérard Vives.^[3] In this version, the hourglass will contain €25,000 and it will premiere at the end of January 2014.^[4]

Legend:      Currently airing        Ended        Future version  

Country	Local title	Host(s)	Network	Premiere	Top Prize
France	Pas une seconde à perdre!	Estelle Denis Gérard Vivès	TF1	January 2014	€25,000

See also

• Take On the Twisters, another 2013 British game show based around the use of an hourglass.

References

External links

• Five Minutes to a Fortune at channel4.com
• Five Minutes to a Fortune at UKGameshows.com
• Five Minutes to a Fortune on Twitter