A COLOURFUL character from Rugby is taking part in the second series of a hit Channel 4 reality game show which starts tonight.
Tim Wilson, 58, will appear on The Circle, a game show in which contestants live in separate flats in an apartment block and communicate with each other through a social media platform – with the twist that players can either show themselves as they really are, or take on a completely different identity.
University academic and animator Tim, who describes himself as ‘a cross between Santa and Mrs Doubtfire’, has chosen to play as himself.
He signed up to the show to highlight how we can’t be sure of who we’re talking to on the internet.
He said: “The internet is a monumentally deceptive organ. Here is a show which is using entertainment to emphasise that point.
“A lot of younger people think what they see and hear on the internet must be true. You just have to expose the fact that deceit is all around us.”
He suspects the pictures of him in his colourful blazers and dickie bows ties will lead other players to think he is using a false identity – particularly when coupled with his unusual life story.
Tim has been a monk, a theatre designer and director, a teacher in Greece while taking on a second job herding 100 goats, and a UKIP parliamentary candidate – and is now a professor at a university in Moscow.
“My strategy for winning is to be myself – because I don’t think that’s very believable. I have a ridiculously elaborate and ill-focused past. I sound like Julie Andrews on speed. It’s absurd.”
Asked how far he would go to win the £100,000 prize, he said: “I’m a boy so of course I’m driven by testosterone, but kindness is more important than brutality. I prize kindness above everything.
“I have absolutely no idea what I would do with the prize money. My partner – who said I should go on the show because it will be the one time in his life where he can switch me off! – has got a very good plan.
“He’s looking at houses. If I were to win the money it would be out of my hands very quickly!”
The Circle launches tonight (Tuesday September 24) at 9:15pm on Channel 4.
