Father-son duo from Liverpool become first BBC gameshow stars ever to bag £10,000 prize

A father and son team have become the first contestants ever to win the full £10,000 jackpot on the game show The Hit List.

More than 250 pairs of contestants have attempted to win the top prize on the BBC One show.

But ahead of series eight launching on Saturday night, someone has finally done it after more than six years.

The Hit List sees contestants hear excerpts of music and they have to name the song and the artist who sang it.

In the show’s endgame, the prize money starts to drop after five seconds of music so the longer contestants take to answer, the less money they make. Contestants are also allowed to skip to a new song.

Both Paul, 61, and Tom, 26, from Liverpool, managed to get every one of the endgame’s 10 songs right within five seconds, without skips, meaning they were able to scoop the full prize on offer.

They raced through, correctly identifying tracks including Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl, One Way or Another by Blondie, Aaliyah’s More Than A Woman and American Idiot by Green Day.

The show, which began in 2019, is hosted by husband and wife presenting duo, Rochelle Humes and Marvin Humes.

As Tom and Paul waited for the final song to see if they’d be able to win the jackpot, Marvin told them: ‘A big moment now, not just for you, because we’ve never had a £10,000 winner in the history of the show!’

When it came to it though, clearing the final hurdle was a true team effort, with Paul quickly identifying it as by Queen before Tom supplied the right track name with A Kind of Magic and the pair hugged in triumph.

Fans watching at home were impressed too as @MidcarderJ tweeted: ‘Easily the best episode of #TheHitList. First £10k winner in the shows history, and the other teams were great too.’

‘Tom & Paul are probably the best contestants that have ever been on this show. Incredible,’ added Michelle Pryde, while another fan enthused: ‘ABSOLUTE SCENES ON #TheHitList. FIRST EVER £10,000 WIN! Great way to kick off series 8!’

‘Tom is like the walking app for shazam,’ added Simon, in awe of his musical knowledge, while Dylan Keith praised his dad, writing: ‘Nah Paul on The Hit List is a machine. Knows every song in literally 0.5 seconds. Fair play.’

Events and marketing coordinator Tom said of their win: ‘We’ve been watching The Hit List for years, this was our third time applying to be on the show, and it was third time lucky.

‘We always knew that we’d go on together, as you need knowledge of music spanning all decades.

‘The two teams we were competing with were incredible, I couldn’t believe when we go through to the final round, the adrenaline was immense and obviously over the moon with the result.’

Marvin said: ‘I was starting to believe that it couldn’t be done, but they came and proved us wrong, after seven years I’ve seen so many attempts.

‘Tom and Paul were so in sync from the start I knew we were on to something special.’

This comes after Rochelle and Marvin opened up about working together on The Hit List, explaining how they’re able to avoid any ‘domestics’ and quarrels while filming the game show together.

While speaking to Metro, the superstar couple explained what it’s been like to work together on the show.

Former The Saturdays singer Rochelle said that while it ‘could have ended up as a nightmare’, they have a lot of fun working together, adding that it’s ‘the show we’d be watching if we weren’t hosting it’ as it’s ‘real family entertainment’.

Marvin, who soared to fame as a member of JLS, also outlined the advantage of ‘working with the love of your life’, as it means that he feels he can be far more direct with his co-presenter.

The Hit List is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

Got a story?

If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.