Philippa Dunleavy

Philippa Dunleavy is 31 and the contestant coordinator of the show The Million Ladder. Thin and restless, with a freckled face whose dark circles are masked with foundation, red hair in a high ponytail and a headset with a microphone always on her head, she is quick and practical and talks to contestants like an excursion teacher. She has been on the show since the first episode, three years ago.

She has seated more than two thousand contestants in those chairs, and says she has never had a night like this. She lives in a tiny apartment in north London, on the second floor, with a two-burner stove, a bookcase that serves as a room divider, a cork board full of metro tickets and uncaptioned postcards and an orange cat that sleeps on the pile of clean laundry. She rarely dines at home.

She wears the crew's black T-shirt, with the golden ladder drawn on the chest, a denim jacket over it and worn canvas sneakers. She carries a clipboard full of cards that she won't put down even to have coffee. She speaks looking at the clock and is on the next question before hearing the answer.

About the show, her account is that of someone who takes care of people: she doesn't see the questions, which are locked in the production computer, and she looks after the contestants, not the answers. She earns a salary, not tips. When someone asks how much a night like that is worth, she answers that it depends on the point of view, and climbs the backstage stairs two at a time.

When the question suggests she sold the questions to the captain, Philippa answers that she doesn't even see them, that they are locked in the production computer and that she looks after people, not answers. She presses the clipboard to her chest and is already looking at the next door: the frankness of an exhausted professional or the haste of someone fleeing the question?