The Masked Singer UK has returned, bringing with it the thrill of the most outrageous costumes ever seen on television.
This year’s contestants include Maypole, Rat, Bigfoot, and Dippy Egg, who are hoping to win before their identities are revealed by the panel, which includes Davina McCall, Mo Gilligan, Jonathan Ross, and Rita Ora (as well as defending winner Charlie Simpson in the first episode).
Cricket stepped to the stage in the first show to deliver a vibrant rendition of Reef’s Place Your Hands, and won over the audience in the studio so they weren’t eliminated – before Weather was taken home.
They left lots of intriguing hints in their VT package, as well as in their mind-boggling puzzle, which they informed the panel.
So, how did you interpret it all? So far, here’s what we know.
What clues are there for Cricket’s identity?
Let’s dissect what Cricket has said so far to see if there are any obvious hints in there about who they truly are…
- When Cricket started talking in their first VT, they had a fairly posh accent – but the panellists deduced it was likely fake
- The singer was shown having ‘gold dust’ applied to them by a makeup artist
- While standing on a cricket pitch, numbers could be seen in the back, including ‘total 60’, a possible reference to their name
- Cricket looks at a newsletter, which includes mention of cricketers ‘Bow Tuffers & moe Wiggo’, the first maybe hinting at Phil Tufnell
- Cricket kept using the word jolly – is that intentional for a reason we’re yet to discover?
- In a riddle given to the panel, Cricket said: ‘I hope my performance was bowling you over, like when I got dizzy while perched on a sofa’.
Who could Cricket on The Masked Singer UK be?
Several well-known names have previously been offered in relation to Cricket’s identity… … some of them appear to be able to walk.
Levi Roots
After hearing Cricket’s rendition of Reef’s Place Your Hands, Mo remarked on Davina’s comment that the singer looked to sing with a Caribbean tinge.
Cricket, according to the comic, may be musician and TV personality Levi Roots, who rose to prominence after appearing on Dragons’ Den in 2007, when he earned a £50,000 investment for his Reggae Reggae Sauce.
Could Mo have guessed correctly because Levi is from Jamaica in the Caribbean?
Jay Blades
Davina cobbled together many indicators to arrive at her conclusion, the first of which occurred directly at the start of Cricket’s VT, when he was observed getting ‘gold dust’ applied to him.
This prompted the panellist think of’stuff you don’t want to throw away’ or goods that are ‘too important to let go of,’ which she related to the items that people bring on the BBC series The Repair Shop, featuring furniture restorer Jay Blades.
Cricket may be behaving older than he is, and… in a more tenuous connection… he may be standing on ‘blades of grass,’ according to Davina.
As we’ve learned over the years on The Masked Singer, no hint is ever too obscure.
Stuart Broad
When the scoreboard showed behind Cricket in the clue video package, Busted singer Charlie took notice of certain numbers, believing that they may reveal the singer’s height of 6ft5.
When he was thinking of tall cricketers, he came across Stuard Broad, who happens to be exceptionally tall.
David Gower
Jonathan also proposed David Gower, the former captain of the England cricket team, as a possible replacement for Stuart.
Cricket, he pointed out, handled himself like an old-school gentlemen, which fit David’s temperament.
Furthermore, he noticed the number 60 on the scoreboard in the VT and mistook it for David’s age (who is actually 66).
Vic Reeves
Another suggestion Jonathan offered concerning Cricket’s identity was Vic Reeves, after The Masked Singer revealed in a riddle that he ‘felt dizzy while sat on a sofa’.
Vic’s lone album, I Will Cure You, had the number one single Dizzy in 1991, according to the panellist.
The Masked Singer UK returns on Saturday at 7pm on ITV1 and ITVX.