Katherine Ryan and Dermot O’Leary host Dave’s game show Silence Is Golden

Katherine Ryan will lead a group of 30 performers who will try to keep the public silent and pocket a quarter of a million pounds in a new TV series.

Silence Is Golden is a new comedy game show from Dave, hosted by TV and radio presenter Dermot O’Leary, in which the studio audience must try not to make a sound.

Six one-hour episodes of the show are set to air in 2025, when the channel will be known as U&Dave. The group of performers, fronted by three yet-to-be-announced comedians and managed by Ryan, wage war on the audience, who are equipped with individual microphones, with each sound being blasted out by the performers, reducing the prize pool by £250,000. If the performers manage to reduce the prize pool to zero, they can donate the money to charity.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing Silence Is Golden,” O’Leary said. “When a show like this falls into your hands, you can’t believe it. I’m looking forward to having fun with the audience, our actors and our diverse cast of regulars, all trying to make the audience laugh, gasp and giggle.”

The show is one of the first commissions from Yes Yes Media, the company founded by former Blue stone presenter Richard Bacon, and bears a superficial resemblance to Amazon LOL: The last one to laugh format in which comedians must try to resist other comedians who try to make them laugh. After airing in several different versions internationally, including in Australia, Canada and Ireland, a British adaptation of LOL would be under development.

Bacon said: “You know that feeling when you’re not allowed to laugh at a funeral? Well, that’s what it is: the game show. And I applaud U&Dave for boldly commissioning a game that will cost them a quarter of a million a week – if the audience is any better at playing the game than we are.”

Ryan is already team captain on Rosie Jones’s Comedy Central show Out Of Order alongside Judi Love, and was recently announced as a judge on the upcoming series of Canada’s Got Talent.

Silence Is Golden is produced by Tim Dean (Late Night Lycett) and was commissioned for UKTV by Mark Iddon, Senior Editor, Comedy and Entertainment, and Jason Dawson, Director of Programming.

Following a pilot in 2021, the series was commissioned by Cherie Hall, head of channel and Hilary Rosen, head of commissioning and is executive produced by Bacon and Yes Yes Media’s head of entertainment Mark Sidaway, former showrunner of The X FactorThe series will be distributed by BBC Studios.

“We’re really excited to bring Silence Is Golden to U&Dave,” said Iddon. “Dermot is the perfect host to curate this ambitious and chaotic show and we think our U&Dave audience will embrace this subversive and unpredictable format.”

“Silence is Golden is the only show where staying silent is worth its weight in gold. It’s the quietest way to lose a fortune you’ll ever see and it’s time our studio audience put their money where their mouth is.”

Hall added: “This is a really original concept for a show and I wish our audience the best of luck as they try to resist the temptation to break the silence – viewers at home will love watching the chaos unfold.”

Dave will relaunch as U&Dave on Tuesday, July 16, 2024.