Gordon Ramsay's Bank Balance

*Gordon Ramsay's Bank Balance*
Gordon Ramsay's Bank Balance
Also known as	Bank Balance
Genre	Game show
Created by	Fernando De Jesus; Tom Day; Sam Smaïl; Bronson Payne
Presented by	Gordon Ramsay
Theme music composer	Paul Farrer
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	10
Production
Executive producers	Gordon Ramsay; Sue Allison; Lisa Edwards; Sharon Powers
Producer	Jennifer Stephenson
Production location	BBC Studioworks
Running time	60 minutes
Production company	Studio Ramsay
Original release
Network	BBC One
Release	24 February –; 14 March 2021

Gordon Ramsay's Bank Balance (also known as simply Bank Balance) is a British game show hosted by Gordon Ramsay, which aired on BBC One in February–March 2021.^[1]^[2]^[3]

On 29 August it was announced that Bank Balance has been axed by the BBC.^[4]^[5]

Format

One pair of contestants attempt to win a jackpot of up to £100,000, by placing and balancing different-sized stacks of bars on a balancing board by answering a series of questions. There are a total of 12 zones on the board and 12 stacks of bars that have to be placed in said zones. The 12 stacks consist of three triple stacks (worth £9,000 each), three quadruple stacks (worth £16,000 each), and one quintuple stack (worth £25,000). There are also two single stacks and three double stacks that act as 'balance bars' and have no monetary value. All stacks must be placed and balanced on the board for the contestants to win their bank balance. The zone that the bars are placed on each round are chosen at random by the contestants.

The 12 question topics are shown at the start and, after the contestants pick a category, the question will require them to give however many answers their stack consists of and place and balance them within 60 seconds. So for example, if the team is playing for a double stack, they have to give two answers and place their bars in time and so on. If the contestants give a wrong answer or run out of time, then the bars lose any value they had and are removed from the possible jackpot. They are still required to place any remaining bars onto the board, but have to also place an additional penalty bar on top of the stack, thus adding extra weight and increasing the chances of the bars toppling over.

The contestants also gain access to three credits as the game goes on, which can all be used once at any time when unlocked:

Pick Again – unlocked after placing three stacks, this allows the contestants to pick the next zone again if they are unhappy with the zone they chose.
Bank a Stack – unlocked after placing six stacks, this allows the contestants to nominate a stack that they would like to bank, which if they successfully place the stack, they win the value of the stack regardless of whether they complete the board or not. They must invoke the credit before playing the question, and the same rules as before apply if they give a wrong answer or run out of time.
Extra Time – unlocked after placing nine stacks, this gives the contestants an additional 15 seconds to answer and stack the following question, giving them 75 seconds total.

The more bars they manage to balance, the more money they gain, but the more bars are placed, the board becomes more and more unstable and likely to fall. If any bar or stack falls during the game, then the game is over and the contestants lose any money they have gained, but if they successfully place and balance all 12 stacks onto the board, then they win all the money that is still in play.

Reception

Bank Balance received negative reviews, with critics considering its format to be confusing and too difficult to win (leading some viewers to compare it to Bamboozled, a fictitious game show pitch from an episode of the U.S. sitcom Friends).^[6]^[7] In a review satirizing Ramsay's persona, Joel Golby concluded for The Guardian "if you want a quizshow, yeah, watch Tipping Point. If you want Gordon Ramsay, all right, watch that one where he shouts at Gino D’Acampo. If you want to watch people balancing things in a prison of mild peril, OK, there are Jenga fail compilations on YouTube. Bank Balance promises all three, and delivers none."^[5]