‘This wall winds me up!'

Danny Dyer on the return of his Saturday-night hit – and what’s ahead for Walford’s Mick Carter...

- VICTORIA WILSON

THE WALL

NEW SATURDAY / BBC1 / 9.15PM / ENTERTAINMENT

With a wildly unpredictable format featuring a nail-biting mix of strategy, general knowledge and luck plus a supercharismatic host in EastEnders star Danny Dyer, it’s little wonder that The Wall proved a hit for BBC1 when it launched last year.

A game of risk and reward, each episode begins with a team of two contestants answering questions as balls fly down a four-storeyhigh wall into slots at the bottom, worth varying amounts of money.

Get a question right, the ball turns green and the money is added to their prize pot. But get it wrong, the ball turns red, and money is deducted. As the rounds continue, the money up for grabs increases.

Here, Danny, 43, tells TV Times how the show has been adapted so it could be filmed safely during the pandemic, plus reveals what lies ahead for his Walford character Mick Carter this autumn…

How does it feel to be hosting a second series of The Wall?

There’s been so much uncertainty recently that I wasn’t expecting it at all, so I’m very happy about it. Because of COVID-19, we’ve had to move filming from Poland to London but we’ve built ‘the Wall’ in Wembley Arena to the same spec. And we can’t have a studio audience due to social distancing but the game itself brings tension, jeopardy and all the things you need for a great game show, so it hasn’t affected things, really. There ain’t another game show on telly like The Wall. There’s just so much at stake and so many different elements to make it a good formula.