Countdown star reveals exactly what happens when contestants' longest answer is explicit

Countdown has delighted TV fans, number crunchers and word fanatics for more than forty years, becoming a firm favourite of easy viewing television lovers.

Now, one of its stars has revealed behind-the-scenes secrets of the long-running Channel 4 show, including what happens when contestants submit a swear word as their answer.

Irish comedian Neil Delamere, 46, often appears on the game show, where he joins resident lexicographer Susie Dent in Dictionary Corner - the segment of the show dedicated to word origins and definitions.

Speaking on the podcast with fellow comedian Shane Todd, Delamere described taping the show as "great craic", and spoke about his excellent relationship with host Colin Murray.

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He also revealed the protocol for when, during the 10 letters rounds, during which contestants attempt to make the longest word possible from nine randomly chosen letters, the chosen word is explicit.

Recalling an incident during a recent taping, Neil said: "Colin asked them, 'Well, what have you got?'

"This guy said six, the other guy said six and we said we'd got six as well.

"The first guy goes, 'Sorry about this but it's w***ed. Then next guy went: 'W***ed as well,' and showed the guy his page.

"Susie and I got that as well. So what they do in that circumstance is say, 'Right, you both got six, you're both getting six points,' but they made the guy choose another letter which took the 'D' away and put an 'N' up, and made them both declare 'awaken' as their six-letter word.

"So you don't have to broadcast the bad word and the integrity of the scoring system is the same."

Lexicographer Susie, 60, previously revealed how she helps celebrity guests look clever by coming up with long words for them to read out from the nine random letters.

However, it backfired with Rivals star Danny Dyer.

She said: “I did the same for Danny because he kept saying, 'oh, I can't do this.’ And, he saw the top line, which was actually the nine random letters that had come out that we needed to make long words out of. And so he thought that was the word. So it was just this massive jumble that he tried to pronounce!”

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