Wheel of Fortune to return to screens with Graham Norton as host
British adaptation of the hit US series has been off air since 2001
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Wheel Of Fortune is set to return to TV next year, with Graham Norton taking over as host.
The Eurovision and Graham Norton Show presenter will host eight episodes of the game show revival on ITV and streaming service ITVX.
Wheel of Fortune originally ran on ITV from 1988 to 2001, having been adapted from the hit US programme of the same name.
The format sees contestants spin a large carnival-style wheel to win cash prizes after solving puzzles.
Nicky Campbell was the original series host, with Bradley Walsh, John Leslie and Paul Hendy subsequently serving as presenters. Angela Ekaette, Carol Smillie, Jenny Powell and Terri Seymour also featured on the series as “hostesses”.
Two of the episodes of the new series will be celebrity specials, with the famous guests still yet to be announced.
Speaking ahead of the new revival, Norton said: “I’m beyond excited to be bringing such an iconic American show to a new British audience.
“My first ever TV job was a game show on ITV so this feels like coming full circle. You might even call it a wheel!”
Norton appeared in the sex-themed game show Carnal Knowledge on ITV in 1996. The show was hosted by Maria McErlane, and saw Norton assume the role of her assistant.
A premiere date for Wheel of Fortune is yet to be announced, though it’s been confirmed that the series will arrive on screens in 2024.
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Katie Rawcliffe, head of entertainment commissioning at ITV, said: “We are thrilled to have the much-loved Graham Norton bringing this iconic game show to our viewers.
“Anything can happen on the spin of a wheel, it is going to be so much fun.”
Earlier this month, Norton paid tribute to his parents for letting him “fly [his] freak flag” as a child.
The Irish presenter, 60, said that his parents had been considered “radical” when he was growing up in the Sixties because they allowed him to wear girls’ clothes going out.
“I knew that was my job, not to get bullied. Because it was so obvious,” he said. “I remember my parents sending this little fey thing – I wore my sister’s clothes, I still wet the bed – off to primary school, aged four. They must have thought, ‘What’s going to come back? Some blood on a stick? This is all that remains’.”
Speaking The Guardian, Norton continued: “I think [my parents] knew that if they tried to stop me [from wearing girls’ clothes], it would become a thing. These were Irish parents in the Sixties. In a small town in Ireland, I think that was kind of radical that they didn’t fight any of it. They let me fly my freak flag.”
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