It’s the moment millions of TV viewers have been waiting for – the chance to change Richard Madeley’s personality.
The TV host has signed up for Channel 4’s The Circle – where contestants live in isolation, communicating only via a social media network.
Richard usually turns down reality shows fearing they will be “boring”.
But when this Black Mirror-style opportunity came along – where his behaviour will be determined by a public vote – he couldn’t resist.
In the show, Richard will try to fool his fellow contestants into believing he is someone else – and you, the British public, get to choose his fake persona.
Naturally, he is expecting the worst.
“The viewers will choose the most extreme and embarrassing option,” he says, anticipating some “Boaty McBoatface” silliness.
“I suspect I’m probably going to have to be a woman.”
But Richard is taking his upcoming project very seriously and vows to be “an agent of mischief” inside the apartments.
“I’ll try not to make a complete p**** of myself,” adds Richard.
Woody Cook, son of TV host Zoe Ball and DJ Norman Cook, is also set to star in the show, now in its second series.
In reality, Richard admits he is wary of social media, describing Twitter as “like going into a pub where people deliberately slop their drink over your foot, or stub their cigarette out on the back of your hand”.
Richard will bring in a typewriter, so he can work on his novel, as well as a guitar. “I feel like a monk going into a retreat,” he says.
That’s not a bad idea for a character.
Oh, and in case you were wondering what wife Judy Finnigan makes of it, she is “completely baffled”, he admits.
The Circle starts tonight, Channel 4.
