The Vault (game show)

The Vault
Logo from quizshow 'The Vault'.
Starring	Davina McCall (2002) Melanie Sykes (2003-04) Gabby Logan (2004)
Country of origin	Israel
No. of series	3
No. of episodes	31
Production
Producer(s)	Carlton Television Kingworld
Running time	60 minutes
Release
Original network	ITV
Picture format	16:9
Original release	11 May 2002 (2002-05-11) – 31 August 2004 (2004-08-31)

The Vault is a game show created in Israel (known as HaKassefet, Hebrew: הַכַּסֶפֶת‎‎), by Erez Tal. It was later a British hit on ITV, running from 2002 until 2004. It was hosted by Davina McCall (Series 1), Melanie Sykes (Series 2 and 3) and Gabby Logan (Series 3). Logan stepped in for Sykes on 6 July 2004 when she went on maternity leave partway through Series 3 due to her pregnancy.

At the start of each show, the contestants (which numbered seven in series 1, eight in series 2 and nine in series 3) tried to guess the four-digit combination to the Vault, which contained the jackpot money, starting at £100,000 and increasing by a further £100,000 every week it remained unopened.

The four contestants who guessed the closest to the actual Vault combination became players, and the other four became brokers, who could offer answers to questions in return for cash that players earned in the question rounds. In the final round, 10 home brokers were also on hand to offer their answers for similar cash rewards, which they negotiated with the player.

After the first round, which consisted of the four players being given three minutes to answer 10 general knowledge questions correctly, and the two highest scoring players going through to the semi-final, came the final round, which saw the player with the highest amount of money trying to unlock the vault by answering a further ten questions correctly. If they reached the ninth question and answered that correctly, the clock would be stopped and the player would be given three categories for their last question. If they answered that correctly, then they had the knowledge to unlock the Vault and would win the jackpot contained within it.

If the Vault was not opened by the studio contestant at the end of their final two-minute round, then the same Vault jackpot was offered to someone watching at home, selected randomly by the computer from all the people who had registered over the past week. The lucky selected viewer had to answer six questions in 60 seconds, two of which had already been asked in the show. If they succeeded, the viewer would win the jackpot themselves. If they didn't, £100,000 was added to the jackpot for next week's show. In Series 3, the jackpot rolled over for nine weeks consecutively and reached £1 million.

A notable contestant in Series 2 was a music technology student, Mary Swain, who reached the tenth question with nine seconds remaining, and after choosing 'Language', from 'Language' 'Science' and 'Literature' for her final question, correctly identified that 'arctophiles' collect teddy bears, and in doing so won a huge vault jackpot of £700,000, which had built up because the vault had remained unopened for six weeks.