Celebrity Moneybags with Craig Charles

Featuring “tense trivia and total chaos”, the first series of Craig Charles’s daytime quiz Moneybags debuted on Channel 4 in November last year.

And the response was pretty good for the programme that followed in the footsteps of Davina McCall’s Million Pound Drop by offering contestants the chance to win a seven-figure jackpot.

Most critics preferred it to Ian Wright (Moneyball) and Gary Lineker’s (Sitting on a Fortune) quiz efforts that were broadcast around the time, and the ratings were pretty decent as well.

No surprise then that it is back for a second series, beginning this week with a run of celebrity specials.

Jayne Stanger, Commissioner, Daytime and Features at Channel 4 says: “We’re so excited to bring back Moneybags after the first series received an amazing reception.

“It is great to have Craig back on board to give our daytime viewers more quick-fire quizzing and tense moments.”

Although Moneybags is the first quiz Red Dwarf and Coronation Street actor and Gadget Show presenter Charles has hosted, he has taken to it like a duck to water.

“I’ve been offered quiz shows before, and they’ve never really seemed right to me,” he said.

“And it’s one of those things where, if I do a quiz show, it’s got to be right.

“There are so many quizzes on the on the television now.

“Some of them are brilliant, but some are really quite complicated.

“I do like Pointless. And I like The Chase. I like Eggheads as well. I like quizzes a lot, actually. I love Countdown… I suppose you wouldn’t call that a quiz, really. I’ve been in Dictionary Corner and I did quite well. I really enjoyed that one.

“I just wanted this one to be the right one for me.

“And when it came along, it just felt like the right fit. It suited my personality and the tone of the game was really working for me.

“Plus, the fact that there’s a lot of money up for grabs for the players really appealed to me as well.

“There’s a chance to be in the middle of somebody’s life-changing moment and that’s what got me really excited.”

If you didn’t catch the first series, here’s how it will work this week.

Celebrity contestants, including Dane Baptiste, Claire Richards, Kate Robbins, Tom Read Wilson, Greg Rutherford, Toyah Willcox, Nina Wadia, Catherine Tyldesley and Natasha Hamilton, will join Craig for a chance to win life-changing money for a charity of their choice, with an incredible £1million up for grabs, including a £100k bag.

They’ll be randomly selected to take their place in front of the money belt for one of the three head-to-head battles.

Whoever banks the most cash in each round will compete in the ‘triple-header’, a tense three-way battle in which whoever grabs – or steals – the most cash will play to win it all in the final.

There’s mega money at stake, but who will grab it? And more importantly, can they hold onto it for their chosen charity?