I would have liked to have attended this last night but I couldn’t. Happily, Friend of the Bar @ogbajoj did, and has sent us a report:

(Edit: Lewis has gone into a lot of detail here, I like detail, but it sounds as though many readers think this is a more complicated show than I think it is. So I’m trying something – if you want to get the gist of the main format points, follow the bold bits and come back for the details – some of the stuff I’ve put in at the beginning of paragraphs is my interpretation I’ve edited in. Let me know what you think.)

• The show will be live on Saturday nights at 8pm. It was split into 5 parts, so I’d guess they’re aiming for 90 minutes. Though this was a pilot, it was pretty much recorded as-live, with minimal pickups.
• The selling point to the execs is the at-home interaction aspect. Instead of MPD’s flash game, Revolution will be using a mobile app to play along for the chance to win some cash. No word on what platform(s) the app will be on, but we were told it will cost “a maximum of £1” so I imagine it’ll be out at 99p in the iOS app store and a similar price for Android.
• The set is hexagonal, with a trapezium shaped screen above each side. The audience is seated in 3 groups, on alternating sides, while contestant podiums are on the unoccupied sides. The main centrepiece is the revolving gameplay area. Health and safety will be happy to know that nobody actually stands on the revolving part, there is just a large pyramid on one point of a triangle. Within the large triangle is a raised area, upon which sits a revolving turntable with 5 “money pyramids”. The entire thing seems quite dark and millionaire-y, though there are plenty of gold highlights throughout.
• Carol Vorderman does a thoroughly ok job as host, though she did make a flub or two that will be more difficult to cover when the show goes out live. She bantered with contestants well enough, and she can read questions well enough, so she’s got the basics down.
• There are three teams, one of one, one of five and one of twenty-five. The contestant setup is possibly the most unusual I’ve seen. On one side of the set is a lone contestant, on another side are a family of 5 with a nominated captain standing at the podium and the other 4 family members sat behind on a set of large stairs, and the third team is a team of 25 work colleagues, again with a nominated captain at the podium and the others sat on the stairs behind. (People have snuck pictures onto Twitter, here’s one, here’s another)
• Before the title sequence there was a recap of the previous game. While this is necessary for shows like The Cube, where we can be starting mid-game, here each week’s game will be self-contained so there’s no real need for this and I don’t know why it’s there.
• There are five money pyramids on a turntable of varying cash amounts. The game starts with five money pyramids being placed onto the turntable, three of which have £0 printed on their bases, and two with money amounts (at the start these are £50k and £100k). The pyramids are made of some refractive material, so colours can be projected into them from the turntable. The turntable spins and is lowered inside the central dais so the pyramids can’t be tracked, then raised again and slowed to a stop. This is accompanied by dramatic music and lighting which gets old fast.
• The game starts with the lone player, who chooses one of the five pyramids, not knowing what amount is on the base. It is placed onto the larger pyramid on his end of the revolving triangle by one of three very quiet guys wearing all-black suits and black gloves. These guys always handle the pyramids very carefully to make sure the amounts are never seen until the right moment.
• To keep the money in the pyramid, the player must get two questions right. If they get one wrong, another team gets the money. The contestant must then get a question correct twice to move the pyramid around the set completely, to regain control of it. Questions are Secret Fortune-esque, for example the first question given was “in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, which of these characters does Dorothy meet first?” with three options A: the lion, B: the scarecrow, or C: the tin man (spoiler: the answer is the scarecrow). As the question is first being asked, the set revolves clockwise so the pyramid is now in front of the family team. If the question is answered incorrectly, the family gain control of the pyramid.
• However, if the question is answered correctly, the correct answer is removed and the question is asked a second time. In our example, the answers would now read A: the lion, or C: the tin man. While this is happening the pyramid is moved again, over to the team of 25, who will now gain control if the question is answered incorrectly. If the question is answered correctly twice, the pyramid moves back to where it started, it has “completed a revolution” so the lone player keeps control.
• There seems to be a time limit on answering questions, but I couldn’t see any clock to indicate how much time there was, just Carol stating that time was up and she needed an answer.
• No matter what happens, someone now has control of the money pyramid. They get to choose whether they want to keep it, or give it to one of the other teams. Each team can only have two pyramids at the end of round 1.
• Now there is a space on the turntable, so a new pyramid is brought in, this time with a higher cash amount. The turntable spins, lowers, raises, and stops again, to dramatic music and lighting again.
• The pyramid end of the triangle is now moved to the family’s area. The team captain chooses one of the pyramids to play for, again not knowing what’s on the base, and the team is asked another question. The family cannot directly confer, but are all given ask-the-audience style keypads which they must all vote on (including the captain). After time is up, the captain gets shown which answer was most popular among the family. They can choose to go with the family or choose a different answer if they’re inclined to do so.
• The second part of the question is played by the captain alone, with no conferring or voting help from the rest of the team. Since in round 1 the control always moves clockwise, this time losing in part 1 will give the team of 25 control, and losing in part 2 will give the lone player control of the pyramid.
• After the family’s question is over, another higher value pyramid is added, the randomization and dramatization process happens again, and the captain of the team of 25 chooses a pyramid to play for. Again, part 1 of the question is voted on, which the captain can veto if they wish, and part 2 is played by the captain alone. And again the control is moving clockwise, so a part 1 fail gives it to the lone player and a part 2 fail to the family.
• The entire process happens for one more go around all three teams, so eventually all teams have 2 pyramids. The pyramid added after each question is higher valued than the last, and the total of all round 1 pyramids is one million pounds.
• Of course, there is a possibility of a team gaining control of a third pyramid. In this situation, the captain can still choose to keep or pass the pyramid, but if they keep it they give away the HIGHEST value they currently hold.
• At the end of round 1, the team with the lowest amount banked is out of the game. But their money doesn’t vanish into thin air, it gets added to the viewer prize pot for the evening, along with £100k to seed the pot.
• At this point there are still 4 money pyramids left on the turntable. These are not removed for round 2, but there is an empty space that needs to be filled, and now they start bringing out the big money; the new pyramid is worth £250k.
• The two teams now compete to take as many pyramids as they can with no limits, meaning there is no need to pass a pyramid any more as even a zero-value pyramid won’t hurt you. Round 2 has a lot of things I’m unclear on, since nobody managed to answer a single question correctly. I’ll try to give my understanding of it, as it was explained.
• The process is very similar to round 1, and the questions are all in the same format as round 1, with the voting on each team and the possibility to veto all present. However, control doesn’t always move clockwise now, getting the question wrong in part 1 will always give the pyramid to the other team. Since there is an empty gap on one side of the studio, getting it wrong in part 2 will actually put the value of the pyramid into the viewer prize fund, displayed above the vacant podium. Getting it right both times completes the revolution as in round 1, giving the answering team the pyramid and the money.
• Each team answers two questions in this round, and so four pyramids are brought into the game: the aforementioned £250k, a second £250k, a £500k pyramid and a £1M pyramid, bringing the total money introduced in round 2 up to 2 million pounds.
• At the end of the round, again the team with the lowest prize pot must leave the game, and again their money is added to the viewer prize fund. The four pyramids left on the turntable are now discarded.
• In this recording, the team of 25 reached the final round, so the captain was asked to pick four of his teammates to join him for the all or nothing final. I imagine the family would play the round exactly the same, as their team of 5, and the lone player would have to answer all the upcoming questions on their own.
• The money pyramids on the turntable are now replaced with four zero-value pyramids and one pyramid representing the entire prize fund, simply marked £££. The randomization and drama process happens for the eleventh time, so nobody knows which pyramid is worth the cash.
• Each player gets a question, a right answer owns the pyramid (hopefully it’s the one with the money), a wrong answer loses it. The captain is now shown a question category (for example, games) and has to choose a teammate to come and answer the question. The teammate chooses a pyramid to play for, and a question is presented similarly to every other question (for example, “Which of these letters is worth the most points in Scrabble? A: X, B: Y, or C: Z”). Now the captain and their chosen teammate can confer, they have the time it takes for the set to complete one full revolution to come up with an answer. The teammate has the final say on what answer is given, which is then revealed to be correct or incorrect. There is no stage 2 to any question in the final, if it is correct then the pyramid is simply lit green, if answered incorrectly it is lit red. The turntable is not randomized again after each question in the final. Instead, the next category comes up, the captain nominates another teammate to join them, and the process repeats as before. Once four of the five pyramids in the centre have been chosen and played for, the question for the last pyramid is answered by the captain alone.
• Once all five questions are answered and all 5 pyramids are coloured, there is of course the reveal. Each of the green pyramids is a chance to win the cash, and each red pyramid is not. Each green pyramid is revealed after a dramatic pause. In this show, the team won after getting 3 of the 5 questions correct. If the team have won…
• PYROTECHNICS! Fireworks set around the lighting rig go off with some loud booms and everyone cheers. Carol gives the outro, including the numbers for the viewer prizes and the show ends.
• The play-along game, as mentioned earlier, is done via mobile app. The questions are given to you on the app at the same time as they are on the show. Getting every question in the show right nets you a share of the prize fund. Occasionally throughout the show, the number of players still in with a chance are given and a couple of names are picked out MPD style.
• The audience seemed pretty enthusiastic, though there were one or two moments of confusion whether to cheer or not, particularly when a team passed a pyramid: if it’s a zero, do you cheer for them having passed correctly, or aww at the zero the other team has been given? We were told that we should be rooting for the team in control at any given time, though I get the feeling it never really cleared the confusion.
• There are definitely some sticking points here, which could be polished before showtime. The rules were explained clearly enough as and when needed, but the nonexistent question timer still irks me. Carol is sometimes chatty with the contestants in this time too, when they should be given time to think things through, especially the lone contestant.
• Question difficulty varied somewhat. The Scrabble question above seemed pretty easy, especially for a question in the final, but there was an earlier question which was something like “which of these movies sold the most copies on DVD in the UK in 2011?” which was near-impossible to actually know and instead relied on educated guesswork.
• Overall I’d call this unusual: unusual team sizes, unusual play-along aspect, unusual pre-show recap, unusual number of breaks, unusual question format, unusual choice of host quite frankly. The big money and the play-along might keep people coming in, but the complex rules and different team sizes might be a turn-off, especially against whatever’s surrounding the Lottery draws that week.

Thanks very much for that Ogbajoj, I had to read it through twice to work it out, although I think I understand it. If my understanding is correct, if the in studio winner wins then the show will be giving away over £3m – that surely can’t be sustainable from a one-off 99p app so I would think that your entry represents an entry for that week only – also expect Google to crash. I’m sort of amazed and impressed that having such a complex set-up, the end game is as basic as that. Very interesting.