The 1% Club leaves 25 players out with deceptively simple brick-wall question

Could you have counted the missing bricks correctly?

Twenty-five contestants were eliminated by a question that looked as though it should have been one of the easiest on The 1% Club.

The seemingly straightforward puzzle appeared during the 60 percent round of the ITV quiz show, leaving the studio audience stunned when the answer was revealed.

Hosted by Lee Mack, The 1% Club begins with 100 contestants and gradually eliminates players whenever they give an incorrect answer. The questions become increasingly difficult as the game progresses, eventually leading to the notoriously challenging 1 percent question.

The brick-wall question that caught out 25 players

On the episode in question, a large image appeared on the studio screen showing a wall made from golden bricks.

Several bricks were missing from the middle of the wall, and contestants were given 30 seconds to work out how many had disappeared.

The question was simply:

How many bricks are missing from this wall?

It sounded like a basic counting exercise. But as the clock ran down, Lee Mack added to the moment with a joke:

Where are Pink Floyd when you need them.

When the 30 seconds were over, the result came as a surprise.

A total of 25 players had given the wrong answer, meaning they were immediately eliminated from the competition.

That left 70 contestants still in the game.

The reaction in the studio was immediate. Both the audience and Lee appeared taken aback by the number of people who had failed to get the answer right, with gasps heard as the result was announced.

So, what was the answer?

If you were counting along at home, the correct answer was:

12

The missing bricks in the image added up to 12.

What appeared to be a straightforward visual counting task proved surprisingly costly for a quarter of the contestants still taking part.

That is part of the appeal of The 1% Club. The show is built around logic and the way people think, rather than relying solely on traditional general-knowledge questions.

Each round becomes progressively harder, eventually culminating in the 1 percent question that only a tiny proportion of people are expected to solve.

ITV planned a major change for The 1% Club

The brick-wall puzzle arrived as ITV was preparing a significant change to the show’s format.

Instead of appearing in its usual Saturday-night slot, The 1% Club was set to be shown on consecutive weeknights, with an episode airing every night across five days.

The special run would be known as The 1% Club Rollover and would introduce a new feature involving the show’s prize money.

Under the new format, money that was not won in one episode could roll over into the following episode. If the prize continued to roll over throughout the week, the amount available on the final show could reach £500,000.

Contestants could return for another shot

The rollover format also introduced another major incentive for contestants who managed to reach the 1 percent question.

Anyone who made it that far during rollover week would be invited back to compete in the following day’s episode.

That opened up the possibility of winning the prize more than once.

A contestant who successfully reached the final stage could therefore return the next day and potentially increase their winnings again, with the possibility of doubling, trebling or even quadrupling the amount they had already won.

For fans of The 1% Club, it meant the familiar quiz format was set to become a five-night event, with the stakes increasing as the week progressed.

And while 25 contestants were left wondering how they had missed those 12 bricks, the episode offered another reminder of just how easily a seemingly simple question can derail a contestant’s run on The 1% Club.