Part one of the show featured Michael and four of the day's guests discussing a topic of the day. The guests were usually the two main guests along with the Cash for Questions quiz-master and either the musical guest or the chef of the day. The second part of the show featured an interview with a guest, who is unknown, not a celebrity, with a story which they tell before Michael and the day's chef cook a guest's favourite a dish which they serve to her or him.
Part three of the show was a brief chat with the musical guest who then performed. Part three also featured a chat with a special guest. The fourth and final part of the show started off with the viewer competition Cash for Questions. To finish off the show, Michael was joined by his final special guest of the day.
There was often a musical theatre theme to The Michael Ball Show, with guests such as Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and Kerry Ellis, and performances from the casts of shows including Wicked , Billy Elliot and Love Never Dies appearing on the show.
Cash for Questions
Each day, there was new question and the prize fund was determined by Cash for Questions, the viewer competition in which Michael himself takes part in answering questions given by the day's quizmaster. Each question was worth £100, and the amount in the fund after one minute was the prize for the viewer competition. The quizmaster was the same person on each week depending on the day, with the quizmasters remaining the same throughout the series. They were:
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Friday Night with Jonathan Ross is a British chat show presented by Jonathan Ross and broadcast on BBC One between 2001 and 2010. The programme featured Ross' take on current topics of conversation, guest interviews and live music from both a guest music group and the house band. First broadcast on 2 November 2001, the show began its final series in January 2010 and ended on 16 July 2010.
The Paul O'Grady Show was a British comedy chat show presented by comedian Paul O'Grady, first shown on 11 October 2004. The programme is a teatime chat show consisting of a mixture of celebrity guests, comic stunts, musical performances, and occasionally viewer competitions.
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The Sunday Night Project is a British comedy-variety show by Princess Productions that first aired on Channel 4 in February 2005 under the title The Friday Night Project. Originally broadcast on Friday nights, the show moved to Sunday nights for its seventh series in 2008.
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