Lee Mack stunned as quarter of 1% club contestants wiped out by early question

Lee Mack was left shocked during Saturday's instalment of ITV's The 1% Club, when an early question wiped out a quarter of the show's contestants. 100 fresh faces were in the ITV studios during this evening's showing of the prime time quizzer, each playing for their share of a substantial £100,000 jackpot.

To get there, they would have to answer 15 questions increasing in difficulty correctly without making a mistake. And the game was over for 25 contestants in one of the earlier rounds, each caught out by a 'say what you see' style 80 per cent question.

Introducing the round, host Lee said: "Okay, time for the 80% question - so this is a question that 80% of the people we asked managed to get right. Let's see how you get on with this one."

• Read more: ITV The 1% Club's final question that stumped players as viewers say 'didn't even try'

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The question then popped up on screen reading: "What two-word phrase does this code represent?" showing a picture of a clock and a picture of two flies side by side.

See the picture below to have a crack at it yourself.

While the contestants were trying to work out the answer, Lee joked: "I can't believe that only 80 people out of 100 got this right...the other 30 must be right idiots."

After the timer ticked down, Lee revealed that a quarter of the in-house contestants had been eliminated by the question. He said: "Wow, we've lost 25 people on that one. I was not expecting that, let's have a look at the answer."

The answer to the question was 'time flies' - with the clock representing time and the flies representing...flies. One contestant who got it wrong was Ros Sutton, with Lee asking: "Come on, what's your excuse?"

To which, the contestant replied: "I put clock flies as well," before Lee asked: "Is that a phrase? I tell you what, so many of you said it now I think it might become a phrase. You'll be sitting at home, be like 'oh is that the time? Blimey, clock flies'. So unlucky that."

The shock elimination took the prize pot from £6,000 to £31,000, as hopefuls continued to compete for a slice of the show's potential £100,000 jackpot.