An Ipswich woman who says she spotted a casting advert asking whether she was “the smartest person in the room” is set to appear in ITV’s new reality quiz show Nobody’s Fool. Sonja Angelevska, 32, will feature in the debut series when it launches on ITV1 and ITVX at 9pm on Saturday, May 23.
For Angelevska, the opportunity began with a question that was hard to ignore. She applied after seeing the advert and decided to take a chance on a show built around strategy, deception and intelligence, where contestants compete in daily quiz rounds while trying to build trust with one another.
The programme was filmed over 11 days last summer, but the full scale of the experiment was hidden for almost a year from friends and family of the contestants. That secrecy fits a format in which players are allowed to lie about their performances and achievements in an effort to look more capable than they really are. It is a game built as much on reading people as on answering questions.
Angelevska has lived in Ipswich for the past nine years, after moving to the UK. She said the experience felt like “the first day of school”, a line that captures the mix of nerves and anticipation that comes with walking into a room where nobody knows how far the pretending will go. She also described the people around her as “down to earth”, a small detail that suggests the atmosphere behind the scenes was less cut-throat than the rules of the show might imply.
Nobody’s Fool is ITV’s newest reality quiz show and it is built on a simple contradiction: contestants must appear sharper than they are while still convincing others to trust them. Danny Dyer and Emily Atack host the series, which turns knowledge into a social test and makes every answer a possible bluff. That is what gives the format its edge. The winner will not simply be the person who knows the most, but the one who can persuade everyone else that they do.
