Dermot O’Leary and Richard Bacon team up in UKTV’s ‘Silence Is Golden’

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Richard Bacon’s Yes Yes Media has landed its first commission, a game show hosted by Dermot O’Leary in which the audience must remain silent to keep £250,000 ($320,000).

Silence is golden has been given the green light by UKTV and will air on the U&Dave channel next year.

At the start of each episode, the network hands out the huge prize to the studio audience and all they have to do to keep it is stay quiet. Once each audience member is equipped with a microphone, all hell breaks loose as a green room of 30 acts, led by three returning comedy captains, directed by Katherine Ryan, They wage war on the audience, every sound they have to let out lowers the total prize money.

The series is one of UKTV’s most spectacular for some time, with former X Factor host O’Leary is a major coup for the network, and it’s It’s my house co-creator Bacon’s first commission under the Yes Yes banner. Yes Yes was launched last year and boasts high-profile backers including Snow Patrol guitarist Courteney Cox, Chernobyl producer Sister and French band Satisfaction. Deadline revealed several months later that he had tapped a former X Factor showrunner and production manager of Hidden Light.

Bacon said he “congratulates U&Dave for boldly commissioning a show that will cost them a quarter of a million a week – if the audience plays better than us.”

Curator Cherie Hall added: “This is a truly 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.”

Silence is golden was commissioned for UKTV by Mark Iddon and Jason Dawson. The series was commissioned by Cherie Hall, Director of Channel, and Hilary Rosen, Director of Commissioning. Bacon is executive producer with Mark Siddaway. Tim Dean (Late Night Lycett) is a series producer.