John Bishop on hosting the BBC's Wisdom Of The Crowd

John Bishop hosts the new BBC quiz show Wisdom Of The Crowd this weekend. Here he talks about the show, his competitive streak, and getting tips from Lee Mack...

What can you tell us about Wisdom Of The Crowd?

It’s a show based on a scientific phenomenon by Francis Galton where basically you take one person, ask them a question and then ask a big group of people the same question, the average of the group should beat the individual every time. So, it’s based on science, but it’s also fun. It’s one of those shows that everyone can watch and get involved in.

What drew you to hosting this show?

I like the idea of doing a Saturday night show that all the family can watch. Since I started in television, the landscape has changed quite a bit, but one of the things that remains constant is that if you’re ever going to get the family together, it’s on a Saturday night, and the format of Wisdom attracted me as an opportunity to do that.

BBC One Saturday night still resonates as a big career milestone and particularly when you’re involved with something that’s a completely new show and a completely new format. It’s an exciting thing to be part of.

Do you think you could take on the might of the crowd?

Depends on the question. If the question had anything to do with Liverpool football club or riding a motorbike badly, I might have a chance! The questions are so random, it’s surprising how accurate the wisdom of the crowd is, but it’s also surprising when people come on the show and beat them. It shows how it’s possible for anyone to beat the crowd.

During filming, were there any crowd answers that took you by surprise?

A lot did, because you’re always going to get random answers. If you say to people 'how many mobile phones does the average person have?' you’re always going to get someone say something daft at either end.

But what struck me was when you’ve got a group of people together how unified the answers were. I think that says that as a nation, we’ve got more in common with each other than we think. We all think in a certain parameter.

Did you look to any past or current quiz hosts for inspiration?

Not really as I see this as more of a gig. It’s like a comedy gig; you’re dealing with the crowd. The questions are self-explanatory; the format is pretty easy to get so you don’t have to keep doing homework throughout the show and explaining to everyone what’s going on. You can just get on with it. Because of that, it felt more like a gig than a quiz show.

How confident are you with quizzes in general? Are you secretly competitive?

I’m not secretly competitive, I’m very competitive. And I don’t mind quiz shows but I’m not like my brother. You can’t go anywhere without him asking you questions. He’s constantly writing questions and coming up with quiz shows. Any family dos he tries to get us into teams and do quizzes so I’m not as into quizzes as he is.

Who else out of your friends or family would you love to see try their luck against the crowd?

My wife, because she thinks so differently to me that I can’t work out some of her answers to regular questions, let alone our Wisdom ones.

Did anyone offer you advice before you took on a Saturday night hosting gig?

I spoke to Lee Mack a bit about hosting a quiz show and how it’s different to normal shows because people are winning money. Some of the money won will make a big difference to people and it’s a good sum of money for people to walk away with, so there’s jeopardy in there that’s different than anything else that you do. 

You’ve got to respect that and lean into it because it’s exciting to be able to say to someone they’ve won £10,000 but it’s also hard to tell someone that they’ve lost £10,000. You have to respect that’s different to a normal show.

I also spoke to Lee about the fact you’re in a game show world. Once you’re in it there’s a format that structures each of the episodes, and as a result you’ve got to make sure that the format is as good as you think it can be. And that’s why havingthe opportunity to input into this and do a number of run throughs has been so advantageous because I actually like the show. I like watching it, I think it’s a good format

• Wisdom Of The Crowd starts at 9.15pm on Saturday on BBC One and iPlayer.  

Published: 15 Sep 2026