HE’S used to making a big bang in the kitchen but now restaurateur Max Mason will explode on to our television screens as a human cannonball.

Tonight more than three million people will see the owner of the Big Bang restaurant in Jericho nervously shaking his head inside a 20ft cannon in the BBC1 programme 101 Ways to Leave a Game Show.

The cannon is sited 100ft above a giant pool of water.

Fans of the stunt-filled show, which attracts 3.5m viewers, will know which-ever contestant gets a question wrong is ejected from the show in dramatic fashion.

Mr Mason, who has owned the gourmet bangers and mash restaurant in Walton Street for six years, was flown to Argentina for a week to film the programme, which gives the winner a £10,000 top prize.

He will watch the show tonight with friends at home in Jericho on the day he celebrates his 35th birthday.

Mr Mason said: “It was just terrifying, absolutely terrifying. You have no idea how you will exit the show until you’re led away for the questions.

“When they told me somebody would be leaving the show by cannon I went to the head of stunts and said what if it’s me leaving this way feet first. The head of stunts replied that he’d turn us around to make sure we go in head first.

“It’s nerve-wracking. You’re lying in this cannon knowing if you get it incorrect you’re out.”

After a tense countdown to find out who got the crunch question wrong, Mr Mason shoots head first into the water from the cannon.

The former Royal Navy officer said: “All you feel is this speed as it fires you towards the water. It feels like the longest journey imaginable – you’re in the air forever.

“I think I screamed but it all goes through your head so quickly.

Mr Mason said the experience of filming the show, hosted by Steve Jones, over two days was “sheer terror”.

But he added: “To be ejected from a game show in a way that literally was a big bang is amazing.”

Mr Mason’s appearance on 101 Ways to Leave a Game Show is aired at 6.50pm.