British Museum to host gameshow

The quiz show will make use of the museum's Great Court

The British Museum is to be the setting for a television gameshow based on its galleries and collections.

Codex, due on Channel 4 this winter, will be presented by Time Team host and Blackadder actor Tony Robinson.

Contestants will use the museum's artefacts to break a code while "locked" in the building overnight.

"It seemed such a brilliant place to play a game and at the same time to decipher the past," the show's creator Justin Scroggie told BBC News website.

"It has such a completely different atmosphere when everyone has gone home and your voice echoes down 2,000 rooms," he said.

Vast collection

Codex will feature some of the most famous items from the British Museum's vast collection.

Amongst them will be the Flood Tablet, a 2,700-year-old clay tablet inscribed with the Babylonian version of the flood story, which is closely related to the story of Noah's Ark.

"They're entrusting us with artefacts that they are preserving for the nation," said Mr Scroggie.

"What we're trying to do is give the nation the chance to see them in a different way."

Scroggie's previous television credits include Treasure Hunt and The Crystal Maze.