The 1% Club contestant accused of 'cheating' as viewers spot 'suspicious gesture which they claim gave away the answer'

A contestant on Lee Mack's The 1% Club has been accused of 'cheating' after viewers spotted he made a suspicious gesture to reveal the answer.

Jason Duckett, 36, who appeared on the ITV quiz show with his wife Rowena, was forced to hit back at claims that he cheated following fan uproar.

Viewers spotted Jason rubbing his earlobes to apparfently signal to his wife the answer - which was indeed 'ear' and 'hear'.

Some claimed the move was a 'bit naughty', while others outrightly called it 'cheating'.

But after claims triggered a probe into the deception, the show confirmed Jason and Rowena were actually eliminated at the time he touched his ear.

The show tests 100 members of the public's intelligence, common sense and logic with questions that ascend in order of difficulty according to what proportion of the wider public can answer them - 90 per cent, 80 per cent, down to one per cent. 

Jason told The Sun: 'I almost admire the creativity of someone to come up with that because I hadn’t thought of that.

'There was nothing to gain for either of us. We were both out. Anything I was doing it was to just sort of calm myself. 

'If you spin it, you could say my arms are folded. Was the answer harm and arm?'

During Saturday's show, viewers were quick to spot the possible cheat and took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to share what they saw.

Comments read: 'Did anyone else notice this guy giving away the answer when he touched both his ears?'

'Ear ear . . . think there was a wee bit of cheating going on in 1% Club.'

'Bit naughty from Mr Duckett there rubbing his ear.'

A 1% Club spokesman said: 'Any game show worth its salt attracts conspiracy theories. But happily, initial inquiries quickly established that there were no grounds for suspicion.'

It comes after Lee previously spoke out about cancel culture, saying no joke on any subject should be off limits - as long as it is funny enough.

The Not Going Out star said the golden rule should be that the joke must be more funny than shocking.

But he said although that means in principle anything is fair game, in practice some topics are so sensitive that no comedian will come up with a funny enough joke.

Mack - who still writes long-running BBC sitcom Not Going Out, but now rarely does stand-up - also said too often now jokes have become judged without looking at the intention behind them.

He said: 'In principle, there isn't anything that you can't do a joke about, nothing. But for me, the joke has to be funnier than it is shocking. So the more shocking the subject matter the better the joke has to be.

'And there are some subject matters that are so shocking no one is good enough to think of a joke that is funnier than it is shocking.

'So in principle you can do a joke about anything, but in practice you can't because no one's that good.'