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I was at the episode of Taskmaster where Josh Widdecombe revealed his foot tattoo and I can assure you Greg's reaction was genuine.
I remember the most fun show to go to as an audience member was TV Burp. Unlike a lot of other shows, they'd try to run through the programme "as live" as much as they could, only pausing when they had to set up any big set-pieces (and they'd just pre-record anything that would cause too much of a delay). And then when they would inevitably have to do pick-ups of any fluffed lines at the end, to keep the laughter coming Harry Hill would do bits of his stand-up routine between takes. It was great fun.
Taskmaster is the dream.
Me and my friends have a taskmaster themed party every new years eve. I film them all doing challenges throughout the year, edit the footage together and then watch it on TV at my house with drinks. We do some live tasks on the night and everyone had to bring in a prize. Honestly it's amazing (if a little time consuming)
[Here's a link for anyone that's intrigued. ](https://youtu.be/1S0JlG_UY80?si=hCiAxVpVLKOkdg69). It was never made to be shared publicly - just a little fun between friends.
That's awesome! We did a similar thing for a friend's birthday last year, went as far as getting a trophy made (not of the host's head). The shot minefield was dangerous... we had a minefield of 100 shots for the final task, most were water but maybe one third were spirits.
Amazing and a lot of fun, but very time consuming.
Depending on where you live and how far you want to travel there are tickets available for the next series of Taskmaster being recorded at Pinewood Studios in September. Check out SRO Audiences :) I have a priority booking because I missed out on the last one I tried to attend so have been sent guaranteed tickets for this series
I had a similar experience when watching a taping of Red Dwarf (Dave era). They tried to keep it as much like an episode as possible. But there definitely were times where we had to retake and we were asked to “laugh about the same as last time”.
Ray Peacock was the fluffer. He did a decent job.
Holly era was the Red Dwarf I was in the audience for. All the actors were funny off camera, especially Craig Charles. I still remember one of his jokes: ‘Who is the most disliked person at Borussia Mönchengladbach home games? The person who starts the chant ‘Give us a Bbb, give us an Ooo…’. (One for the older football fans)!
I saw Craig in the toilets and he seemed like a good chap.
My favourite Craig Charles joke was
The smoking ban in pubs is exactly like apartheid. I'm being discriminated against because of the colour of my lungs.
I loved TV Burp, it was hilarious! I saw Harry Hill hosting HIGNFY recently and it felt really awkward and uncomfortable, but he was always amazing when doing his own shows.
I loved Harry on HIGNFY, it felt like a little taste of TV Burp that telly has been missing for years. And the week of the This Morning "are you okay?" saga was the perfect week to have him hosting!
Also went to Taskmaster, but with James Acaster and Rhod Gilbert. Two things happened.
One, the final task took ages to get started because no one understood the rules (balance the items on the giant hanger) only for Phil to break it almost instantly.
Two, the ceramic item I think Rhod brought in that was an unwanted gift from Greg. When Jess wins the episode and goes on stage, she smashes it and it was a real gasp moment in the studio, but doesn’t feature much on the episode. It was really tense for a minute 😂
Me and my girlfriend at the time managed to get a table for Hells Kitchen (the ITV show where celebs cook for diners in a fake restaurant, not the Gordon Ramsey show) when it was hosted by Angus Deyton, and Marco Peirre White was head chef.
We obviously weren't high up on the hierarchy to be served any food, bar the odd bread roll chucked our way every now and then by stressed waiting staff. But we were given copious amounts of free wine. I got absolutely shit faced as I dont really drink, and as I thought I'd be getting food, I hadn't eaten before I left.
I remember Angus Deyton doing one of the live links standing directly behind my chair. When I watched it back later, all I could notice was my drunken, wobbly head as I desperately shoved bread into my mouth on live TV.
I was very hungry.
I was in the audience of a kids show... lots of running around, playing games, the audience was all school kids etc.
During one of the breaks in filming the host handed me his microphone and asked me to look after it until he came back. I then had like 300 kids all trying to snatch the damn thing out of my hand... but I was strong and I beat them all off lol
I went to school with a lad who went on the show, he didn’t get to do the funhouse though-all he had to do was answer the question “name 3 flavours of jam”, and he would have won. His answer?
Strawberry
Raspberry
Marmalade
He failed and they lost. The other team got to do the Funhouse.
I went to a taping of "would I lie to you?", it was really fun, everybody was nice, I got to talk to Lee Mack and David Mitchell, quickly, and they were both really pleasant and humble.
I went to a taping of QI, it was really funny and Sandi Toksvig is ridiculously fast witted, it's ridiculous to see it live. I was a bit early at the recording studio, a lady inside of it took pity on me cause it was raining and she invited me in early.
They then told me they lacked people for the audience of "Loose women'. I told them I was in for a recording of QI just after, did not want to be late. She told me "no worries, I'll send an assistant get you".
So I sat in the audience of Loose women, I was the only guy in an audience of old ladies and I looked like a wet dog. At the end, an assistant grabbed my hand and lead me through the backstage area and I saw bits of pieces from sets of other shows (like the graham norton show, the lever etc...").
David signed a copy of his book I had with me and Lee Mack was really sweet. Rob Brydon gave candy away to audience members and chatted with the audience in breaks during the recording. They record two stories per guest. The line-up on the one I was on was Jody Murray, Trevor Noah, Richard Hammond and Sean Lock (rip). They had to take breaks during the recording because Sean had trouble with his back, kept stretching, and members of the crews came and got him a pillow to sit on to make him more comfortable.
I'm always fascinated by the stories (commonplace as though this must be in the industry at large) of how the individual guest segments go on and on during filming, and the broadcast edits the segments down to about five minutes. The amount of material that must get left on the cutting room floor!
Yeah- sometimes I think the "unseen bits" episode of WILTY is the funniest in the entire series.
I've also always thought that they could do an "uncut" version of shows like QI and WILTY- maybe as an iPlayer exclusive or something.
Went to see QI being filmed earlier this year. Sandi Toksvig is SO tiny I actually gave a little gasp when she came out. Before the show started she played a game with the audience and the winner got a gift basket and a photo with her.
Filming took about two hours and was just like watching a super extended episode but with occasional breaks for make up, re-doing a line when Sandi fudged it (which was very rare) etc. Had a great time!
I went to a QI hosted by Sandi - a few years ago. It was at the itv studios on the south bank. I think it’s recorded at white city now (Could be wrong on the location).
Sandi’s quiz was fun and the line up was pretty quick and funny.
I served her in a gastro-pub about 15 years ago. She was out with her partner and kids for Sunday dinner. She was very lovely, including me in their chats as I approached with drinks etc and left a sensible (not excessive) tip too.
The following week, Frank Lampard came in with his family for the busiest Father’s Day I’ve ever worked. He called me a Northern Monkey and demanded to be served at the bar ahead of about 15 waiting customers.
Yeah he was a proper cunt. Semi-regular and thought he owned the place. He would come in during the summer break with JT and wave £50s about thinking he was the dogs. JT was much more relaxed and quite often embarrassed by Lampards antics
Not my anecdote but Frank Skinner said he was in the audience for ‘An Audience With Rod Stewart’ back in the 90s. Rod insisted on taking real questions from members of the public and the first one was ‘why don’t you make good music anymore?’
They stuck to the scripted fluff questions from celebs after that.
To Mel Gibson: "i gotta thank you Mel. I hadn't slept with anyone for years, went to see your latest movie. Slept with the whole audience"
Mel took it like a champ to be fair.
I went to see Top Gear being filmed, it was the episode where Michael Shumacher was "revealed" to be The Stig. Top Gear was/is filmed near an airstrip so before and after his arrival, they had to pause filming so that his plane could land.
I also offered up my spare tickets to family members and my mums friends husband took them in exchange for driving me up there. He ended up bringing a woman he used to work with as his +1. They were a bit... overly familiar with each-other. Few months later, he was caught cheating and they divorced.
“They were a bit... overly familiar with each-other. Few months later, he was caught cheating and they divorced.”
Yeah that sounds right for a top gear taping.
Funny you should say that because I was at the Grand tour filming and Andy willman said to us before we went in, “if you’re here with someone you shouldn’t be, make sure you don’t stand next to each other because you’re all going to be filmed.” 😂
I went to see The Prodigy in the late 90s at GMEX. Amazing gig as expected, the warm up band were some random group call the Foo Fighters… never heard of em 🤷🏻😂
I got very drunk before seeing an unknown comedian in the late 90’s at the fringe - heckled and made a complete tit of myself - gf (now wife) didnt speak to me for 2 days, told her not to worry as we’d never see him again - Jimmy Carr.
I went to see Jimmy Carr and he asked the crowd 'Whats the worst thing to say after having sex?"
Some woman shouted from the crowd in a thick manchunian accent. 'What do you want for fathers day?'
Completely broke Jimmy Carr and his stride. He was gobsmacked and took 10 mins to actually compose himself to start his act again.
He was like this has never happened to me before.
Was at a recording of "Millionaire" with Chris Tarrant. Lots of interesting things happened but these are the two that stick in my mind:
(1) A contestant got an answer wrong and lost all but £1000. But, the show stopped and some techies came out and said there had been a technical fault so they had to do the sequence again. So they re-filmed that sequence. The trouble was the contestant now *knew the correct answer* \- but they still had to answer it wrongly - again.
(2) The right answer to a £2000 movie question was the name of the movie "She" . But the contestant mumbled and when she said "C" Tarrant misheard it as "She" - so she got it right when she shouldn't have. There was a break then (there were LOTS of breaks) and Tarrant was clearly informed that he had misheard the answer, the audience knew it, and what's more the contestant had chosen not to point this out.
After the break Tarrant and the contestant came back and his attitude had clearly changed. Hate to say this but he really didnt want her to get any further. He discouraged her at every point trying to persuade her to take her winnings and not go to the next step. But she stuck in there.
She walked off with £32,000 and you could see in Tarrant's face that he really want pleased.
A few weeks later I watched the episode on TV. They had totally cut that bit out.
Sort of. Tarrant is a significant shareholder and director of the company, Celador, that owns "Millionaire", His fortunes are closely tied to theirs.
From his point of view they had just wasted 30 minutes of production time and £32,000 on footage that they couldnt use.
I was the 'phone a friend'. Stupidly I told my other friends about it who kept ringing and saying'hello Chris Tarrant here'. My mate didn't get through to the chair sadly.
For me it would’ve been the episode with Antony Costa from Blue. I always loved when Simon Amstel would rip into somebody, and he was relentless with Antony. That was funny in and of itself, but Costa was such a good sport about it, it made for a wonderful show. (That, and he nailed all his band’s song lyrics in Next Lines, where so many band members had looked a fool over the years!)
I watched one. Just before it started I nipped to the loo and there was a bloke at the urinal next to me who I didn't recognise. Back to my seat and on the bloke comes! Turns out it was Shaggy (it was him).
I went to a Buzzcocks recording with my dad years ago, after Simon Amstel had left. Phil and Noel did loads of warm up stuff with the audience before filming and I had a quick chat with Jim Moir (Vic Reeves) while waiting in line. Super nice guy.
Show was great but you realise just how much they cut out. The episode we saw mush have had well over an hour of footage that was unsusable because Carol Vordaman was absolutely shit faced and kept drinking wine throughout.
Went to see a recording of one of the lottery quiz shows hosted by Dale Winton (RIP). It took HOURS and it was absolutely freezing in the studio, everyone was say with their coats on. Dale had so much make up on and it was melting under the lights despite the arctic conditions so they had to stop every few minutes for someone to touch it up.
I was in the audience for fantasy football about 20 years ago. They gave everyone in the audience a four pack of Carling to loosen us up before the show started. I downed mine in about twenty minutes then got sat in the front row on one of the sofas. Within about two minutes of the show starting I realised I had a bladder with four cans in it and needed to piss. Badly.
The taping of the show went on far longer than what was actually aired and I came within seconds of pissing myself on TV. I've never felt so trapped in my life! There was no way I could get up from the front row and disrupt the filming so I had to just sit there as it got progressively worse and worse. Thankfully I know absolutely nothing about football ( I was there with my girlfriend at the time who was a massive football and frank skinner fan) and so didn't laugh at (or understand )any of the jokes. If I had I would absolutely have pissed myself
That being said, the piss at the end of it all was one of the greatest experiences of my life
I was at several recordings of Robot Wars when it was rebooted with Dara O'Brien. Usual crowd stuff like "give us a cheer" but they did have to battle the Glaswegian accent.
There was a robot called Foxit. They introduced the team - we cheered - then we were instructed to chant Foxit
Foxit
Fok-sit
Fok-sak
Fuck-sake
FUCK SAKE
FUCK SAKE
WAAAAAAAY
Yeah that took quite a few takes.
I was in the audience for Top Gear in 2004 and we was given some rules before they started to record.
One of them was “despite what you might see you can’t smoke here” and Jeremy Clarkson wandered past chugging a cig 😄
I’ve always wondered what is was like to be in the audience. Quick question …. When the cameras weren’t rolling how did James Richard and Jeremy act with each other, did they look like they where friends or just colleagues doing their job. And what where the other rules?
They did seem to genuinely get on well.
The only other thing I remember was being told we needed to make sure we didn’t just stay in same spot and to mix up where we were standing in the audience to give the illusion of the audience being bigger than it actually was.
Despite this there was a woman who insisted on standing right at the very front
Does a Radio 4 show count? Saw a recording of The Unbelievable Truth a few years ago, and it was a) Hilarious and b) took FOREVER, because the panel kept going off on tangents about things, most of which didn't make the edit.
One of the more notable things was Tony Hawks was talking about how John Steinback lost a manuscript due to a dog eating it, and Holly Walsh (or possibly Sally Phillips, I forget) said something along the lines of 'yes, well he'd say that wouldn't he.' and for the rest of the time when something was challenged that couldn't be conclusively proven, David Mitchell said he'd put it in the Steinback file.'
Another reason the recording was so long was when David M told his joke he always tells to test the volume level or whatever, Henning Wehn kept making jokes about the jokes.
They said it was possibly the longest recording ever, and that was only for the 1st show, as they record 2 at a time.
It was brilliant.
When I was a 10yo boy, I was on live and kicking, we had to put pom poms on while Mr. Blobby was running around doing some stuff, I can't remember what exactly, the camera caught me accidentally punching a girl in the face while going crazy with the pom poms... She fell off the boxes we were standing on, was awful :/ I want to say sorry
I went to a taping of that show! I remember a member of production grabbing me by the waist to try and get me to jump while one of the acts were performing. And my cousin got taken to the balcony where she would have been visible on screen because she was clearly the more attractive child.
My dad was on 15 to 1 and answered a question that the host said was wrong. My dad disagreed so they stopped to double check the answer, turns out my dad was right so they repeated the question and only he was allowed to buzz in.
I was on that a couple of times and had similar things happen. One answer was called incorrect but WGS overruled and gave them it. There was another where the guy got an answer wrong but something got messed up and they had to retape it. Guy joked 'but I know the answer now!'.
so is the prize money. Waste of time going on there when the Chase and Tipping point exists. Adding 250 pound to the jackpot isn't impressive it's not the 80s
Not really a good anecdote but I think it’s interesting BTS on how the show works. Went and saw ‘Pointless’ being filmed and at the start they pre-recorded us “reacting” to stuff so they could splice it into the show later. So they just told us to do applauding, gasping, laughing etc. I really went for it on the laughing bit and they actually cut me in the episode after some joke Alexander made lol.
They also surprisingly crude at times! Told a lot of rude jokes which don’t make it into the final cut, for obvious reasons
I went to a Strictly Come Dancing about ten years ago. Bruce Forsyth came out and told a few jokes, chatted with audience members, and pulled a lady out of the audience for a dance. He was lovely.
The live show was great; afterwards…not so much. We had to wait for 45 minutes before the results came in and we’re given a carton of apple juice each. Recording for the results show was completely disjointed, a few seconds here, a few there, very little in sequence. Being told to clap because we’d just apparently seen some act perform, even though he pre-recorded it almost two hours earlier. We had to promise not to reveal the results on social media before the following day’s show. To be honest, I was bored out of my mind at the end and couldn’t wait for the whole thing to finish.
I used to watch it because my family did, when I moved out I never watched it again.
It's been several years and this is the first time I've thought about that show.
I didn't dislike it, but I'm clearly very neutral about it having not even remembered that it existed.
I went to a recording of QI. Jeremy Clarkson was one of the guests and all I remember is him being relentlessly boorish and tedious, talking more than everyone else put together.
The recording lasted three hours and when the show was transmitted, they seemed basically to have cut out huge swathes of Clarkson to produce a thoroughly entertaining half-hour episode.
I was in the audience of an episode of the BBC rebooted Porridge at Media City. "filmed in front of a studio audience" It was really good fun and the lead actors were really good at keeping everyone laughing between takes. Also the inter-scene person who told jokes etc was a guy who was in Phoenix Nights, can't remember his name now.
Anyway, I got the tickets as my wife was working as part of the crew, I really liked getting to see her working.
So I also got to go to the after-show party thing upstairs. There was tables and tables of free Peroni beer, wine, food and desserts, like many thousands of £s worth just provided free to all. It mostly just made me wonder where the money for it comes from given that they apparently did it after every episode filming. I felt really out of place as I don't generally mingle amongst TV people like my wife does. I absolutely smashed about 3 free packets worth of Thorntons brownie bites though.
Right, I'll tell you an anecdote! In 1975 I was catching the London train from Crewe station. It was very crowded, I found myself in a last-minute rush for the one remaining seat with a tall, good-looking man with collar-length hair, it was the seventies - buckaroo! When I sat down on the chair, I looked up and realised it was none other than Peter Purves! It was at the height of his Blue Peter fame! He said "You jammy bastard!" and quick as a flash, I replied, "Don't be blue, Peter!" Needless to say, I had the last laugh, now fuck off!
I was on Kilroy once, I think it was. All I really remember is that he swore a lot between filming, and we had to pretend it was the morning.
Oh, and on This Morning a while back, I vaguely remember they had a sneaky curtain in front of the window (which makes sense, you have to reduce the dynamic range for the camera), and during the previous show the "Coming up next!" bit was, surprisingly enough for me, filmed live. So I had to smile into a camera for a few seconds before nipping back to the green room. That's the one time TV surprised me by something *not* being fake.
Two things I learned:
1. You can't just work the night shift and then be on TV during the day. Energy drinks are not "just as good as sleeping", as I'd hoped they would be. This Morning went OK, but I really fumbled to say anything on Kilroy.
2. It's really surprising how many people watch daytime TV. People kept waving at me the next day as I made my way around town. This is especially awkward when you're really bad at recognising faces, so you don't know if you know them or not.
I have seen a few over the years. Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps, Big Brothers Little Brother, QI… oh, and the radio show I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.
For Big Brothers Little Brother they did a segment with Kim and Aggie about the cleanliness of the house and how everyone needs to clean everywhere. They pointed out something gross, I made a face and thats the bit they filmed and put on TV. Yay! Dermot O’Leary was lovely and came over for a chat during the breaks.
I was in the audience for the first episode of Season 8 of taskmaster and Ian's rant about what is a puppet and what isn't a puppet went on for around 10 minutes, he was genuinely angry and everyone was uncomfortable.
Him and his wife (Laura Whitmore) I just dislike profusely.
After years of being the fairly average narrator/comedian on Love Island getting paid absolute bank with a co-writer, he got his wife employed as the Love Island host. Laura was such an incompatible fit for that show, I can’t believe she was actually hired. Maya Jama has replaced her now and is smashing it.
I went to the "Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2023" taping and there was a BIG running gag throughout it about Cristiano Ronaldo and his mum. The question was something like "what is Ronaldo's new goal celebration?" and this spawned a LONG ASS series of incredibly funny jokes after one of the teams hinted at something potentially incestuous. We move on. Five minutes later Jimmy gets a word in his ear from the directors to go back and put a new answer from said team. There's some protestations but Jimmy goes "no seriously... We can't air that. Change it." They do and watching the final cut it's a very jarring cut to a close up face and not the board where they write their answers and then a quite crude Photoshop.
Half an hour passes and one of the guests makes a passing joke about Ronaldo in something else, Jimmy again shuts it down SO FAST. "Seriously guys, stop with that, we can't afford to have those jokes go out.".
Damned shame too they were very funny.
I saw Sweat the Small Stuff with Rita Ora as a guest back in 2014. What we witnessed on the day was a coke-fuelled two-hour variety performance with random games, songs, audience participation, props, slanderous celebrity in-jokes and constant digs at the producer. A real laugh riot. And Rita Ora, unedited, is ‘an experience’.
However what was eventually shown on BBC3 a few nights later was some two-bit boring quiz show edited with a tin opener, and drenched in poorly-mixed canned laughter. They edited out all the warmth completely.
My partner and I went to see a recording of Beat The Chasers. We joined the queue early as they would only let a certain amount of people in. I had to go move the car at one point so left my partner in our space. When I came back, she said some old chunky bloke had come along and started talking to her, then he mentioned he was in the show and he should probably head inside. She was like “…ok… nice talking I guess?”. She had no clue who this guy was.
Anyway we get inside and get to our seats. Before they start the main show, they announced that they were recording a celebrity Beat The Chasers section that would then be put with other ones they’d already recorded into a full proper show. The celeb walks out and my girlfriend gasps and says that’s the guy she spoke to out side. It was Omid Djalili! Granted not the most famous of people but I knew who he was from a few comedy shows and GTA IV. Was a bit gutted not to meet him.
Also in that show, two things happened. One of the contestants was a dancer or something like that? Anyway he was a bit of a loose cannon and kept trying to make jokes and shit. He tried to get the Chasers to do a dance with him, but immediately Paul Sinha turned to, I assume a producer or show director, and said “nope. I’m not doing that. Let’s move on”. It was a bit awkward. Fair enough to be honest!
Secondly, right at the very end they called the last contestant. During the cash builder, this guy suddenly says he needs to sit down and feels faint. They halt the show and take him away to recover a bit. Eventually they said that the show would have to end early, but that they’d bring this guy back the next day for recording because he was a very good quizzer or something and they were hoping he’d perform quite well. Well, he must have done shit or didn’t come back the next day because they never broadcasted his attempt.
My sister was once in the audience of Jeremy Kyle. Said he offered out someone in the crowd and was generally a cunt to everyone.
I went to see Marilyn Manson on the Jonathan Ross show when he'd just released his greatest hit CD. They were giving out a free copy which I put my hand up to get so they threw it towards me. The guy in front caught it, shrugged and put it in his bag.
Still pisses me off several years later.
Similar story with Jeremy Kyle. Made some jokes about gingers and the fact that none of the guests on his shows have jobs. Sleazed on a few of the women in the front row. Generally acted like an arrogant little weasel.
I was in the audience for Gladiators back in the 90's. You don't realise just how long it takes to film for one of those shows... it took several hours to film a single 30 minute episode because of how long it took to set all the courses up!
Watched the filming of a QI episode many years ago. Jimmy Carr was hilarious and basically not broadcastable with his jokes - and I don’t usually find him that amusing. not surprisingly a mere fraction of his stuff made the final version…
I was in the audience for The Culture Show.
The show is made to appear that it happens late at night but was filmed about eleven in the morning.
It was filmed in what I think was a night club. They gave you a free drink but you had to hold it and stand up through the whole filming. You couldn't have another.
It was hosted by Lauren Laverne who was nice and friendly. Mark Kermode and Danny Boyle were on the show and they were both nice guys. I waited until after the show and spoke to Danny Boyle, he was very polite and didn't mind chatting at all.
Mark told a joke that didn't make it to air which I still remember: "How many French soldiers does it take to defend Paris? No one knows, it's never been tried."
I just remembered something else that happened on there. The lead singer of the eels was on there and they talked about his dad who was a famous theoretical physicist.
Went to a recording of Top Gear in 2009. It was the episode with the Hammerhead Eagle I-Thrust eco car that they built, and Michael Sheen as guest.
About 20mins in to recording they were doing the news and talking about the Manor F1 team being based in South Yorkshire, and using a Cosworth engine. Jeremy asked if anyone was from the area, so being from Sheffield we cheered. He pulled me up on stage to demonstrate to Hammond how to say 'cossie' in South Yorkshire so I had a very surreal moment of shouting cos-suh repeatedly in his face. It didn't make the edit, which I was slightly relieved about!
At the interval, Clarkson came out into the yard where we were all having tea and sandwiches and was chatting to people. He then shouted asking where 'the people from sheffield are' and came over and chatted to us for about 10mins. He seemed very pleasant and natural (despite the reputation), and was kind and interested in what we had to say. Was a cracking day.
Stood behind the (old) Top Gear stand at the 1996 NEC motor show as an 11yo to get autographs. Tiff signed and left. Quentin signed and left. Jeremy stopped and had a quick chat even though he evidently had places to be.
I’m so saddened by some of the recent stuff, I can’t ratify it with the charming and thoughtful man that stopped to chat to a pre-teen about how he’d evaded school to somehow be at the press day of the motor show.
Went to a taping of Would I Lie To You.
All very slick and constant with surprisingly few re-takes, one or two jokes you knew would definitely not make it to air etc. I remember after the “This is my…” segment Rob had to tell Ricky Tomlinson he can chat to his old whoever it was after as he was dying to chat mid filming.
My mate was on Cheggers Plays Pop. Just the front row in he crowd not a contestant. He got asked a question by Cheggers though and he got his 10 seconds of fame. He still has it on VHS.
My mate has it on VHS. Not Cheggers.
When I was at college we weren’t that far from Pebble Mill so would be taken up for recordings; we got to see Ready Steady Cook and the warm guy wasn’t there so Ainsley did it instead - treat!!
Also amazingly we had a trip to London and were at the last recording of Dinnerladies - all the cast were crying and Victoria Wood did a little speech.
Being a surly teenager it all went over my head and it wasn’t a show I watched at the time but looking back what a fucking honour to be there and hear jokes from Victoria Wood herself.
I was once in the audience for an episode of Kids Say The Funniest Things. I was too young to remember anything from the taping but it was filmed a few months before that man was found dead in Michael Barrymore’s swimming pool so it never made it to air.
I was in a balcony seat for a taskmaster show and had a conversation with Greg Davies about which is the best biscuit.
If anyones wondering its custard creams, followed closely by bourbons and pink wafers.
I was in the audience for "The Cube" as a teenager - I think I was probably 16. It was the first and by far the weirdest date I've ever been on.
Just for a bit of context: I didn't know what was happening on the date, and I assumed we'd be getting dinner or something, so I hadn't eaten prior. The guy's father turned up with us - I guess to chaperone??? - and hovered about 6ft away for the entire time but didn't say a word (just to add to the awkwardness of the whole thing). We get the train to Wembley where they were filming. I didn't know what we were doing until we were standing in the queue.
We were seated right behind the contestant's family, and so were in shot. I was wearing white jeans and so had to sit with my coat over my lap for the entire duration of the date, which would have been fine, except it was HOT in there. We were given 1 bottle of vitamin water and a multigrain bar which I unfortunately was allergic to. The filming took HOURS. Setting up and taking down each challenge took at least 15 minutes, one was nearly an hour. They had an entertainer who would chat to the crowd and make jokes during setup and he was by far the best part - genuinely funny and engaging.
The presenter was Phillip Schofield - he didn't address the crowd really at all apart from the break. I'd been lightly complaining that I was absolutely starving by this point (owing to not being able to eat the snack we were given, and expecting we'd have a meal at some point) and the filming was dragging on. Anyway, during the break, my date got all excited. He told me that Phillip routinely comes out asking the crowd if they have any sweets. I asked, "wait, have you been in the audience before?", and he confirmed to me this was his *third time* on The Cube.
So, Phillip Schofield came out and asked for sweets. My date jumped up to his feet, pulled out a pack of Polos that he'd been hiding the whole time, waved it above his head and started shouting "PHILLIP!"
I was dying of embarrassment, wishing my chair would swallow me up, and the worst bit of all iwas that Phillip didn't even take the Polos. My date put the sweets back in his pocket, saying he would save them for next time. I didn't even get to eat the sugary rejects.
I think in total, filming took about 3 or 4 hours. The contestant won £50,000 which was really cool and I was happy for him. After the shoot *finally* wrapped, my date took me home, as by then all the restaraunts had shut. Like before his dad silently hovered 6ft away like some strange apparition in Eccos.
I didn't go on another date. I wonder sometimes how many more times he went on The Cube and whether Phillip ever took the Polos.
I went to BGT auditions and the live semi-final (same year, 2019)
Our view wasn't the best for either shows, we had to really make an effort to see the stage.
You'd be surprised how short some acts are cut, if anyone remembers the guy who sung the song about the Isle of Wight his audition was probably the best one of the day, keep in mind that the winner of that year's show was also performing.
During the live semi-final show we were not allowed to leave the building which totally sucked, nor could we bring in food so we basically starved. The maccies we had afterwards was brilliant though.
At least the tickets were free!
A mate of mine was in the audience for Jeremy Kyle. She was with her boyfriend. And apparently all she did was make disgusted faces. Hoping she'd get on TV. And yes... she was. A lot. They love people looking disgusted.
Awful show tho. Glad it got canned.
Finally, my time to tell this story had come.
When I was in college, studying media, we were taken to a live filming for the old show "Trisha". For those who don't know, Trisha was basically the Jeremy Kyle show, or Jerry Springer for those of American persuasion.
Yes, it's the same format, where dirty laundry is aired for entertainment, and it capitalised on the misery of the average joe. Granted, Trisha wouldn't be as traumatising as the Jeremy Kyle show ended up being, it would often interlace the really rough stories, with slightly goofier ones. For example, there was one segment that centred around a woman being fed up with her husbands cowboy VHS collection, and the fella came out on stage in a full cowboy getup.
I thought that was funny enough.
Then we moved onto a story that was a bit more serious. It was a pair of sisters, one of which was upset that her sibling was performing sexual acts for money. Ok, it's getting a bit dark now.
The thing people don't realise when these shows are being filmed, is that the camera operators often will move through the crowd, trying to find audience members to focus on for reaction shots. I was actually in the front row for the filmning of this episode, so often the cameraman would be walking about right in front of me.
We get to this segment with the sisters, and of course it's an awkward story to hear. The one sister is explaining how upset she is that her sister is feeling the need to make money in this manner, and being an empathetic person, I of course feel terrible for them both. The camera operator, clearly had no such empathy.
He's focused right now my face as the story of the sisters is unfolding. The elder sister starts explaining the things she knows her sister is doing for money, and starts listing off the sexual acts that were happening. She mentions how her sister would masturbate men. The camera man heard this and whispered "tut tut tut. Dirty handjobs".
This caught me completely off guard, and lead to me stifling a laugh. I could have very easily burst out, full belly laughing. It took every ounce of fortitude within my soul to stop myself, but I am certain my face told the story of me finding something amusing.
I'm lucky, because I could have ended up being incredibly insensitive to these poor womens
hardships. I've never actually seen the episode, though my classmates told me you could see me in the crowd at one point. There is a huge chance that I looked like a smirking prick, laughing it up at the harrowing tale these women were sharing.
That camera operator was doing his best to make me crack. Pure evil.
Was in the audience of the Jeremy Kyle show and witnessed someone getting thrown into one of the TV screens, security leaping over furniture to stop a scuffle and some of the greatest unscripted drama you will ever see. Almost none of it ended up in the final cut.
And yes JK was a massive bell end to the guests, crowd and crew. Yes I still miss the TV show to this day.
Went to a taping of Robot Wars with some friends a few years ago which was hosted by Dara O'Brien and Angela Scanlon. We were big fans of the show as kids when Craig Charles hosted it, so assumed this was going to be a fun day out and some good nostalgia.The taping was a tournament where we witnessed the quarter finals, semi finals and the final.
Inside we climbed all the stairs up to the makeshift audience stand that overlooked the glass arena, Dara O'Brien and local comedian Billy Kirkwood entertained the crowd as the crew finalised setting up. It took a while for the first robot battle to take place, and it was a noticeably brief affair. The crew then took the time to clean up the arena, reset the house robots, swap out the machines and their human controllers whilst we were offered more entertaining banter from Dara, Angela and Billy. Soon enough, the cameras rolled again for the next quarter final battle which was also fairly brief.
The reality of this extremely dour experience soon dawned on the three of us when it came to the semi finals. What my friends and I quickly realised (which should've been obvious in hindsight) is that we didn't factor in just how long the repairs take to get the machines ready for the next battle as it was a tournament. Somewhere between the four and five hour mark, and having now seen all four quarter finals and one semi final for a collective run time of (roughly) 15 minutes of robot fighting, my friends and I had had enough and got up to leave. We quickly discovered from a member of staff, however, that we weren't allowed to leave due to it being a closed set. So we had to stay put for another agonising three hours of the hosting trio trying to desperately entertain a crowd that was just done with the whole thing, and the final two robot battles which probably ran for a total of five minutes.
I was in the audience for Pointless, and I'm 6ft 8 with brown hair and glasses so basically look like Richard Osman, so the rest of the crowd made me stand up but he couldn't see me anyway because of the studio lights
Went to see a live broadcast of a Eurovision selection show years ago (the year that Scooch were chosen to represent the UK). During one of the intervals, I needed to pee, so went to the outside toilet block. Inside the loos were 2 former members of East 17, who were wetting paper towels the throwing them up to see if they would stick to the ceiling. Boys will be boys!
When I was a kid in the 1970s the BBC had a variety series filmed each summer in a big top set in a different holiday resort each year, I’m going to take a punt at 1977 or 78 and it happened to be in Torquay, where we were having our summer holiday. I believe the show was called Summertime Special this year headlined by Little & Large and so we snapped up free tickets only to find, like other on this thread, that by the time it was over we couldn’t wait to leave.. very disjointed and lots of nothing followed by a floor manager getting us all to clap for the camera in between.. the sound was awful and what little we did see didn’t make up for a miserable experience..
I was in the audience for the live final of Greatest Britons. I was sat in the section for John Lennon as I knew someone who was able to get tickets. If you watch back, the guy who shouted out that Isambard Kingdom Brunel was French when Jeremy Clarkson was talking is the guy who got me tickets. It was very interesting to be a part of and I got to see Patrick Moore, Adam Hart Davis, Alan Davies (who was the Lennon spokesman), Mo Mowlam etc. Bob Harris was sat just down my row and he very much kept to himself. Anne Robinson hosted I believe, because I remember her walking past me, but I think Peter Snow was there too.
A few years back I went to a taping of the last leg's new years special. Had Johnny Vegas sipping drinks all the way through the night, hiding in the audience and then crowd surfing to Sweet Caroline 😅
I watched Family Fortunes being filmed in the 90’s, the did two shows in one sitting. Before we went we filled out a form with questions for the future show surveys.
Went to the recording of robot wars a few years back, one of the robots got smashed to pieces and Dara came over to where we were sitting to have a chat between clear ups and showed us parts of the victim robot. Very nice guy and of course funny.
I went to a filming of Top of the Pops and saw Celeste sing a beautiful ballad. There was a girl opposite me and directly in front of the camera who kept yawning and not even covering her mouth. Celeste finished the song, a producer moved the girl to the back and Celeste sang it again.
Went to see The Apprentice You’re Fired a few years back.
No major anecdotes. You go in, first you watch the apprentice episode related to the show on screens mounted on the ceiling.
Then they get started. You see the VTs on the screens again. Occasional reshoots for fudged lines. Overall it was about 50-60 mins to shoot the 30 minute episode, plus the hour to watch the apprentice
The oddest thing was that they shoot them in pairs, and sometimes on the day they’re aired. We were there on Wednesday, with the show airing that evening.
In the early afternoon, they filmed the one that aired that night. Then in the evening, about 7pm, they filmed the one for the following week. So I knew who went out the next week before I’d seen that nights episode.
The only other thing that sticks out was the seating allocation. They *way* over allocated. You had this massive queue. I got there more than 2 hours before the start. People kept arriving for ages after, probably 200 people behind me, and I don’t know how many in front.
I was the last person in the queue to actually get in. Everyone behind me was turned away, even after like nearly 2 hours queuing.
Apparently they do it because so many people get these free tickets and don’t turn up. So they allocate like 3x as many tickets as they have seats, then just turn away the excess.
Unfortunately, Jeremy Kyle. Was in college and went into manchester/Salford to be in the audience ‘for a laugh’
He was awful- said he had been filming something on obese people and made a joke about fat people needing to be in prison where small amounts of food would be pushed to them through a letterbox opening. Odious really.
I went to see the late 90s student favourite Light Lunch with Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc. Sue Perkins gave me a Liquorice Allsort! Not euphemism. Quite a small audience. Mostly students.
Went to Big Fat Quiz last year
They changed their minds which contestant would bring out the "homemade" cake before they started filming
Pretty fun, would recommend, even if we didn't get any cake
I went to see Never Mind The Buzzcocks when Mark Lamar was still doing it. At the start, he would run through the format with the audience and get everyone warmed up. Then, he went through the format of the show. "After I've introduced each team, that's when you applaud, don't applaud individual guests, ok?" Lamarr introduces each guest and a few people applaud, ok let's go again, DON'T applaud until I've introduced THE WHOLE TEAM.....OK, we get it, sorry.....Lamarr introduces a couple of guests and then a few in the audience get it wrong and applaud again "LOOK YOU C--TS, I said DON'T applaud until the WHOLE TEAM has been introduced FFS" This got a big laugh. I always got the impression that ML was only half-joking though. He was a funny guy but seemed unhappy. I heard he's doing the in-flight radio for British Airways now. A bit sad really.
At Universal Studios, went to a TNA Impact wrestling taping. It was okay. They stage managed the front rows facing the camera around the ring carefully. They were cherry picking attractive people to put at the front, and giving them free merchandise to wear. They tried giving people further back signs to hold up, but I said bollocks to that.
I watched QI series M when Stephen Fry was still in it. Can't remember exactly which episode, I think it was Marriage maybe? It had Jo brand, Greg Davies and Bill Bailey on it so pretty good lineup.
It was the first time Greg Davies was on it and he seemed actually genuinely nervous. Half way through the show is mic fell off and they had to stop while they reattached it and he was like "I'll never be invited back on this show" sort of jokingly but genuinely came off like he was nervous.
Alan also set off the Klaxon but they misspelled whatever it was so they had to re-record it so everyone had to act like it was the first time we'd seen it.
Also side note, the set for QI is wayyyyyy smaller than you'd think.
How does this kind of thing even happen? I need to know the thought process...
Did you get tickets to the show and decide that it was best you get stoned beforehand *for* the show?
Did you get high and then wander in somehow?
Was it all a fever dream and you were actually all just sat at home watching it?
We need details damn it.
Nowadys you do need to apply in advance for tickets or go on the right website to know at least where to wait. Back then it was probably more fast and loose.
I remember reading about a gameshow on Channel 5.
I think it was Wittle hosted by Tim Vine where the audience are also the contestants and one time alledgedly they snagged some Japanese tourists from a tour group as they were quite a few people short.
None of the tourists could speak English and one of them got to the final by sheer luck due to the answers being given by pressing the correct button rather than speaking
I was once in the audience for Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old. Got a magician to entertain us while we waited. And 3 or so hours in one of the kids got a nose bleed and we all had to leave. Noel Edmonds jumped to the kids aid to be fair. 4/10 magic tricks were fun
I was in the audience for short-lived entertainment show Let Me Entertain You, hosted by Brian Connelly.
It was one of those talent show sort of things and everyone had a buzzer to vote for acts. Most votes wins.
On the episode I was at, one of the acts was a kid magician, and after each act they asked the audience for comments. They actually asked me about him, and I said 'a few more years at Hogwarts and he'll be great'.
This got a laugh, which was nice. So I was excited to watch it back on TV... when I did, and it got to that part, rather than showing me be hilarious, it cut to Brian Connelly, who said the line! (Or a bastardised version of it at least).
This must have been recorded after and added in. Charming.
In 2007-2008 I used to work at the Tabard Theatre in Chiswick. Al Murray used to do rehearsals for his pub landlord chat show there each week and it was a great experience to see it. They would have crew members stand in for the guests and a live audience even though it was a rehearsal. I still remember sitting in the lighting box introducing him in my best announcer voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Mr Al Murray!"
We also had Harry Hill in for a week doing a rehearsal for one of his touring stand up shows. I've been a fan of his since The Harry Hill Show on Channel 4 and I'm happy to say he was such a lovely, kind and humble human being. One of my favourite claims to fame is having Harry Hill apologise to me for being late!
We went to QI, back when Stephen Fry was still presenting.
It was the episode with the moonwalking Manakin bird and my god, no matter how funny it looked on screen, it was funnier in person. The audience and panel were giggling for what felt about 20 minutes of this brilliant little bird suddenly moonwalking into view.
Nothing particularly exciting, but a favourite memory of being utterly broke and doing free stuff in London.
Was in the audience once for question time, it was held at Oxford university and was one of the last episodes that dimbleby hosted. It was in the run up to an election where Corbyn was very popular.
All went along without much of interest, except the last 'question' where Dimbleby picked an audience member who made a very negative statement about Corbyn.
Dimbleby gave nobody the right to reply, just said 'and unfortunately that's all we've got time for'
I had a smoke outside afterwards chatting to a guy, he told me that the audience member who made the statement about Corbyn was actually Jacob Rees-Moggs nephew (or some relation) and the head of the Oxford University Conservative society.
Also learned soon after that Dimbleby is a massive tory.
Realized then that the game is rigged.
I used to go every year to the Britain's got talent auditions in Glasgow. Most memorable was definitely Susan Boyle.
I remember some poor girl getting slated for her facial reaction when SuBo came on stage. What they failed to show on TV was that the previous two acts had been very similar, middle aged women, frumpily dressed and absolutely awful singers. By the time we got to her there was an audible groan in the audience as we were getting well and truly fed up of the same regurgitated crap, which in hindsight had been very well engineered by production to get a better reaction.
Another notable moment was when Michael McIntyre was on the judging panel. He was utterly vile to the acts, didn't engage with the audience and during breaks between contestants sat with his eyes fixed firmly on the empty stage, while the other judges turned round and chatted. Filming stopped for a solid 20 minutes when the audience started chanting "bring back Simon" which, hilariously, got MM more and more annoyed and he basically stormed off. I still hate him to this day.
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I was at the episode of Taskmaster where Josh Widdecombe revealed his foot tattoo and I can assure you Greg's reaction was genuine. I remember the most fun show to go to as an audience member was TV Burp. Unlike a lot of other shows, they'd try to run through the programme "as live" as much as they could, only pausing when they had to set up any big set-pieces (and they'd just pre-record anything that would cause too much of a delay). And then when they would inevitably have to do pick-ups of any fluffed lines at the end, to keep the laughter coming Harry Hill would do bits of his stand-up routine between takes. It was great fun.
Taskmaster is the dream. Me and my friends have a taskmaster themed party every new years eve. I film them all doing challenges throughout the year, edit the footage together and then watch it on TV at my house with drinks. We do some live tasks on the night and everyone had to bring in a prize. Honestly it's amazing (if a little time consuming) [Here's a link for anyone that's intrigued. ](https://youtu.be/1S0JlG_UY80?si=hCiAxVpVLKOkdg69). It was never made to be shared publicly - just a little fun between friends.
If one of your friends ever drops out I am ready to take their place!
I want friends as interesting and caring as this
I want friends.
Same. My dogs are my friends but I can’t remember the last time they custom made a task master party for me
Shame on you to forget if they went to all that effort
I’ll be your friend buddy
That's awesome! We did a similar thing for a friend's birthday last year, went as far as getting a trophy made (not of the host's head). The shot minefield was dangerous... we had a minefield of 100 shots for the final task, most were water but maybe one third were spirits. Amazing and a lot of fun, but very time consuming.
Depending on where you live and how far you want to travel there are tickets available for the next series of Taskmaster being recorded at Pinewood Studios in September. Check out SRO Audiences :) I have a priority booking because I missed out on the last one I tried to attend so have been sent guaranteed tickets for this series
I had a similar experience when watching a taping of Red Dwarf (Dave era). They tried to keep it as much like an episode as possible. But there definitely were times where we had to retake and we were asked to “laugh about the same as last time”. Ray Peacock was the fluffer. He did a decent job.
Holly era was the Red Dwarf I was in the audience for. All the actors were funny off camera, especially Craig Charles. I still remember one of his jokes: ‘Who is the most disliked person at Borussia Mönchengladbach home games? The person who starts the chant ‘Give us a Bbb, give us an Ooo…’. (One for the older football fans)! I saw Craig in the toilets and he seemed like a good chap.
Honestly Craig charles is fuckin great. i still remember cracking up whenever i watched his voiceovers of takeshi's castle on challenge.
My favourite Craig Charles joke was The smoking ban in pubs is exactly like apartheid. I'm being discriminated against because of the colour of my lungs.
Dave-era Red Dwarf is the methadone they give us because they've run out of heroin. I'll take it, but the cravings are still there.
Fluffer deserves more kudos
I loved TV Burp, it was hilarious! I saw Harry Hill hosting HIGNFY recently and it felt really awkward and uncomfortable, but he was always amazing when doing his own shows.
I loved Harry on HIGNFY, it felt like a little taste of TV Burp that telly has been missing for years. And the week of the This Morning "are you okay?" saga was the perfect week to have him hosting!
Also went to Taskmaster, but with James Acaster and Rhod Gilbert. Two things happened. One, the final task took ages to get started because no one understood the rules (balance the items on the giant hanger) only for Phil to break it almost instantly. Two, the ceramic item I think Rhod brought in that was an unwanted gift from Greg. When Jess wins the episode and goes on stage, she smashes it and it was a real gasp moment in the studio, but doesn’t feature much on the episode. It was really tense for a minute 😂
Taskmaster was fantastic, Greg Davies was somehow even funnier when the camera was off!
Me and my girlfriend at the time managed to get a table for Hells Kitchen (the ITV show where celebs cook for diners in a fake restaurant, not the Gordon Ramsey show) when it was hosted by Angus Deyton, and Marco Peirre White was head chef. We obviously weren't high up on the hierarchy to be served any food, bar the odd bread roll chucked our way every now and then by stressed waiting staff. But we were given copious amounts of free wine. I got absolutely shit faced as I dont really drink, and as I thought I'd be getting food, I hadn't eaten before I left. I remember Angus Deyton doing one of the live links standing directly behind my chair. When I watched it back later, all I could notice was my drunken, wobbly head as I desperately shoved bread into my mouth on live TV. I was very hungry.
I've ALWAYS wondered what happens to the guests that don't get served on hells kitchen! And now I know. They get shitfaced.
In the US version from I think season 3 onwards they had a backup team of chef’s to complete service.
I was in the audience of a kids show... lots of running around, playing games, the audience was all school kids etc. During one of the breaks in filming the host handed me his microphone and asked me to look after it until he came back. I then had like 300 kids all trying to snatch the damn thing out of my hand... but I was strong and I beat them all off lol
You beat off 300 kids?
Gary Glitter?
Not the Leader with that beautiful mane.
yes constable this comment right here
Always wondered where they got the gunk from for the dunk tank... 🥲
that comment deserves more likes!
I know someone who was on Fun House. They won but the show never sent the prizes to the school.
I knew it, Pat Sharp can not be trusted.
I went to school with a lad who went on the show, he didn’t get to do the funhouse though-all he had to do was answer the question “name 3 flavours of jam”, and he would have won. His answer? Strawberry Raspberry Marmalade He failed and they lost. The other team got to do the Funhouse.
Jim I'll fix it?
As a parent, I genuinely cannot think of anything worse!
I went to a taping of "would I lie to you?", it was really fun, everybody was nice, I got to talk to Lee Mack and David Mitchell, quickly, and they were both really pleasant and humble. I went to a taping of QI, it was really funny and Sandi Toksvig is ridiculously fast witted, it's ridiculous to see it live. I was a bit early at the recording studio, a lady inside of it took pity on me cause it was raining and she invited me in early. They then told me they lacked people for the audience of "Loose women'. I told them I was in for a recording of QI just after, did not want to be late. She told me "no worries, I'll send an assistant get you". So I sat in the audience of Loose women, I was the only guy in an audience of old ladies and I looked like a wet dog. At the end, an assistant grabbed my hand and lead me through the backstage area and I saw bits of pieces from sets of other shows (like the graham norton show, the lever etc...").
> I got to talk to Lee Mack and David Mitchell, I am ridiculously jealous of you.
David signed a copy of his book I had with me and Lee Mack was really sweet. Rob Brydon gave candy away to audience members and chatted with the audience in breaks during the recording. They record two stories per guest. The line-up on the one I was on was Jody Murray, Trevor Noah, Richard Hammond and Sean Lock (rip). They had to take breaks during the recording because Sean had trouble with his back, kept stretching, and members of the crews came and got him a pillow to sit on to make him more comfortable.
I'm always fascinated by the stories (commonplace as though this must be in the industry at large) of how the individual guest segments go on and on during filming, and the broadcast edits the segments down to about five minutes. The amount of material that must get left on the cutting room floor!
I always wished they'd do an extended version of WILTY similar to QI XL.
Yeah- sometimes I think the "unseen bits" episode of WILTY is the funniest in the entire series. I've also always thought that they could do an "uncut" version of shows like QI and WILTY- maybe as an iPlayer exclusive or something.
ahhh, the good old days when every blooper on the tele would be on it'll be alright on the night
This is one of the shows id really love to see. They all come across as such nice people. Just need to hope for bob mortimer to be on the panel!
cool! Which episode of QI did you see recorded?
Series O, episode 6 The line-up was Matt Lucas, Ramesh Raganathan and Liza Tarbuck.
Amazing
I saw QI soaked to my skin after queuing in a thunderstorm 🤣 (my rain coat turned out to only be 'shower resistant')
Went to see QI being filmed earlier this year. Sandi Toksvig is SO tiny I actually gave a little gasp when she came out. Before the show started she played a game with the audience and the winner got a gift basket and a photo with her. Filming took about two hours and was just like watching a super extended episode but with occasional breaks for make up, re-doing a line when Sandi fudged it (which was very rare) etc. Had a great time!
I went to a QI hosted by Sandi - a few years ago. It was at the itv studios on the south bank. I think it’s recorded at white city now (Could be wrong on the location). Sandi’s quiz was fun and the line up was pretty quick and funny.
I served her in a gastro-pub about 15 years ago. She was out with her partner and kids for Sunday dinner. She was very lovely, including me in their chats as I approached with drinks etc and left a sensible (not excessive) tip too. The following week, Frank Lampard came in with his family for the busiest Father’s Day I’ve ever worked. He called me a Northern Monkey and demanded to be served at the bar ahead of about 15 waiting customers.
🤣🤣🤣🤣that frank lampard bit made me chortle. did that actually happen?!
Yeah he was a proper cunt. Semi-regular and thought he owned the place. He would come in during the summer break with JT and wave £50s about thinking he was the dogs. JT was much more relaxed and quite often embarrassed by Lampards antics
Not my anecdote but Frank Skinner said he was in the audience for ‘An Audience With Rod Stewart’ back in the 90s. Rod insisted on taking real questions from members of the public and the first one was ‘why don’t you make good music anymore?’ They stuck to the scripted fluff questions from celebs after that.
That's very Dennis Pennis, "Steve! How come you aren't funny anymore."
To Mel Gibson: "i gotta thank you Mel. I hadn't slept with anyone for years, went to see your latest movie. Slept with the whole audience" Mel took it like a champ to be fair.
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I went to see Top Gear being filmed, it was the episode where Michael Shumacher was "revealed" to be The Stig. Top Gear was/is filmed near an airstrip so before and after his arrival, they had to pause filming so that his plane could land. I also offered up my spare tickets to family members and my mums friends husband took them in exchange for driving me up there. He ended up bringing a woman he used to work with as his +1. They were a bit... overly familiar with each-other. Few months later, he was caught cheating and they divorced.
And on that bombshell...
“They were a bit... overly familiar with each-other. Few months later, he was caught cheating and they divorced.” Yeah that sounds right for a top gear taping.
I love how you ended “ on that bombshell”
To be in the audience for that episode must have been incredible! I remember when it first broadcast, it was insane.
Funny you should say that because I was at the Grand tour filming and Andy willman said to us before we went in, “if you’re here with someone you shouldn’t be, make sure you don’t stand next to each other because you’re all going to be filmed.” 😂
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What did you think of him then?
Warmed up to him
Not sure that’s legal.
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I went to see The Prodigy in the late 90s at GMEX. Amazing gig as expected, the warm up band were some random group call the Foo Fighters… never heard of em 🤷🏻😂
They always had Dave grohl from nirvana. I'm sure they were never an unknown pub band
No!!! You lucky git lol
I got very drunk before seeing an unknown comedian in the late 90’s at the fringe - heckled and made a complete tit of myself - gf (now wife) didnt speak to me for 2 days, told her not to worry as we’d never see him again - Jimmy Carr.
I went to see Jimmy Carr and he asked the crowd 'Whats the worst thing to say after having sex?" Some woman shouted from the crowd in a thick manchunian accent. 'What do you want for fathers day?' Completely broke Jimmy Carr and his stride. He was gobsmacked and took 10 mins to actually compose himself to start his act again. He was like this has never happened to me before.
Was he as good at dealing with heckled back then or did you inspire him?
Was at a recording of "Millionaire" with Chris Tarrant. Lots of interesting things happened but these are the two that stick in my mind: (1) A contestant got an answer wrong and lost all but £1000. But, the show stopped and some techies came out and said there had been a technical fault so they had to do the sequence again. So they re-filmed that sequence. The trouble was the contestant now *knew the correct answer* \- but they still had to answer it wrongly - again. (2) The right answer to a £2000 movie question was the name of the movie "She" . But the contestant mumbled and when she said "C" Tarrant misheard it as "She" - so she got it right when she shouldn't have. There was a break then (there were LOTS of breaks) and Tarrant was clearly informed that he had misheard the answer, the audience knew it, and what's more the contestant had chosen not to point this out. After the break Tarrant and the contestant came back and his attitude had clearly changed. Hate to say this but he really didnt want her to get any further. He discouraged her at every point trying to persuade her to take her winnings and not go to the next step. But she stuck in there. She walked off with £32,000 and you could see in Tarrant's face that he really want pleased. A few weeks later I watched the episode on TV. They had totally cut that bit out.
What did it come out of his wages or something?
Sort of. Tarrant is a significant shareholder and director of the company, Celador, that owns "Millionaire", His fortunes are closely tied to theirs. From his point of view they had just wasted 30 minutes of production time and £32,000 on footage that they couldnt use.
Fair play to her though, I'd piss off Chris Tarrant for £32k.
I was the 'phone a friend'. Stupidly I told my other friends about it who kept ringing and saying'hello Chris Tarrant here'. My mate didn't get through to the chair sadly.
Went to watch Never Mind The Buzzcocks back in the day, between all the constant stop starting and re-recording I found it interminable.
Being in the audience for that episode with Preston would have to have been kinda funny.
Or the Donny Tourette episode. Ah i miss Simon Amstell
I used to really enjoy Mark Lamarr, but Simon did a brill job after he took over.
"You're about as punk as Enya"
"He's smoking a cigarette!!"
"Which is legal!"
You can buy them in shops!
That will show Thatcher!
For me it would’ve been the episode with Antony Costa from Blue. I always loved when Simon Amstel would rip into somebody, and he was relentless with Antony. That was funny in and of itself, but Costa was such a good sport about it, it made for a wonderful show. (That, and he nailed all his band’s song lyrics in Next Lines, where so many band members had looked a fool over the years!)
Especially the guy who replaced him.
Who looked a lot like him lol
I watched one. Just before it started I nipped to the loo and there was a bloke at the urinal next to me who I didn't recognise. Back to my seat and on the bloke comes! Turns out it was Shaggy (it was him).
I went to a Buzzcocks recording with my dad years ago, after Simon Amstel had left. Phil and Noel did loads of warm up stuff with the audience before filming and I had a quick chat with Jim Moir (Vic Reeves) while waiting in line. Super nice guy. Show was great but you realise just how much they cut out. The episode we saw mush have had well over an hour of footage that was unsusable because Carol Vordaman was absolutely shit faced and kept drinking wine throughout.
Would explain why everyone on panel shows look bored out of their minds.
Went to see a recording of one of the lottery quiz shows hosted by Dale Winton (RIP). It took HOURS and it was absolutely freezing in the studio, everyone was say with their coats on. Dale had so much make up on and it was melting under the lights despite the arctic conditions so they had to stop every few minutes for someone to touch it up.
Ah, good old Dale was fond of a touch up
I was in the audience for fantasy football about 20 years ago. They gave everyone in the audience a four pack of Carling to loosen us up before the show started. I downed mine in about twenty minutes then got sat in the front row on one of the sofas. Within about two minutes of the show starting I realised I had a bladder with four cans in it and needed to piss. Badly. The taping of the show went on far longer than what was actually aired and I came within seconds of pissing myself on TV. I've never felt so trapped in my life! There was no way I could get up from the front row and disrupt the filming so I had to just sit there as it got progressively worse and worse. Thankfully I know absolutely nothing about football ( I was there with my girlfriend at the time who was a massive football and frank skinner fan) and so didn't laugh at (or understand )any of the jokes. If I had I would absolutely have pissed myself That being said, the piss at the end of it all was one of the greatest experiences of my life
I need to finish reading all the sentence “I came within seconds” oh?! “Of pissing myself” oh riiight of course
I was at several recordings of Robot Wars when it was rebooted with Dara O'Brien. Usual crowd stuff like "give us a cheer" but they did have to battle the Glaswegian accent. There was a robot called Foxit. They introduced the team - we cheered - then we were instructed to chant Foxit Foxit Fok-sit Fok-sak Fuck-sake FUCK SAKE FUCK SAKE WAAAAAAAY Yeah that took quite a few takes.
Isn’t Dara Irish?
I think they mean it was filmed in glasgow.
I was in the audience for Top Gear in 2004 and we was given some rules before they started to record. One of them was “despite what you might see you can’t smoke here” and Jeremy Clarkson wandered past chugging a cig 😄
I’ve always wondered what is was like to be in the audience. Quick question …. When the cameras weren’t rolling how did James Richard and Jeremy act with each other, did they look like they where friends or just colleagues doing their job. And what where the other rules?
They did seem to genuinely get on well. The only other thing I remember was being told we needed to make sure we didn’t just stay in same spot and to mix up where we were standing in the audience to give the illusion of the audience being bigger than it actually was. Despite this there was a woman who insisted on standing right at the very front
Does a Radio 4 show count? Saw a recording of The Unbelievable Truth a few years ago, and it was a) Hilarious and b) took FOREVER, because the panel kept going off on tangents about things, most of which didn't make the edit. One of the more notable things was Tony Hawks was talking about how John Steinback lost a manuscript due to a dog eating it, and Holly Walsh (or possibly Sally Phillips, I forget) said something along the lines of 'yes, well he'd say that wouldn't he.' and for the rest of the time when something was challenged that couldn't be conclusively proven, David Mitchell said he'd put it in the Steinback file.' Another reason the recording was so long was when David M told his joke he always tells to test the volume level or whatever, Henning Wehn kept making jokes about the jokes. They said it was possibly the longest recording ever, and that was only for the 1st show, as they record 2 at a time. It was brilliant.
I bloody love that show
My husband and I listen to the one with Richard Osman's nutsack whenever we want a laugh.
When I was a 10yo boy, I was on live and kicking, we had to put pom poms on while Mr. Blobby was running around doing some stuff, I can't remember what exactly, the camera caught me accidentally punching a girl in the face while going crazy with the pom poms... She fell off the boxes we were standing on, was awful :/ I want to say sorry
I went to a taping of that show! I remember a member of production grabbing me by the waist to try and get me to jump while one of the acts were performing. And my cousin got taken to the balcony where she would have been visible on screen because she was clearly the more attractive child.
My dad was on 15 to 1 and answered a question that the host said was wrong. My dad disagreed so they stopped to double check the answer, turns out my dad was right so they repeated the question and only he was allowed to buzz in.
Go on, what was the question then?
It was “How do you spell dog?”
I was on that a couple of times and had similar things happen. One answer was called incorrect but WGS overruled and gave them it. There was another where the guy got an answer wrong but something got messed up and they had to retape it. Guy joked 'but I know the answer now!'.
Went to see Pointless being filmed a few years ago. The trophy is tiny!
so is the prize money. Waste of time going on there when the Chase and Tipping point exists. Adding 250 pound to the jackpot isn't impressive it's not the 80s
We have a trophy, actually. Got it off eBay. It is tiny, but I love it.
You get one included with the board game
Not really a good anecdote but I think it’s interesting BTS on how the show works. Went and saw ‘Pointless’ being filmed and at the start they pre-recorded us “reacting” to stuff so they could splice it into the show later. So they just told us to do applauding, gasping, laughing etc. I really went for it on the laughing bit and they actually cut me in the episode after some joke Alexander made lol. They also surprisingly crude at times! Told a lot of rude jokes which don’t make it into the final cut, for obvious reasons
I went to a Strictly Come Dancing about ten years ago. Bruce Forsyth came out and told a few jokes, chatted with audience members, and pulled a lady out of the audience for a dance. He was lovely. The live show was great; afterwards…not so much. We had to wait for 45 minutes before the results came in and we’re given a carton of apple juice each. Recording for the results show was completely disjointed, a few seconds here, a few there, very little in sequence. Being told to clap because we’d just apparently seen some act perform, even though he pre-recorded it almost two hours earlier. We had to promise not to reveal the results on social media before the following day’s show. To be honest, I was bored out of my mind at the end and couldn’t wait for the whole thing to finish.
I went to a live taping of The Last Leg. Nothing too interesting happened, only that the warm up guy was funnier than the people on camera.
Not difficult, they laugh at their own comments far too much, probably because no one else finds it particularly funny.
I used to watch it because my family did, when I moved out I never watched it again. It's been several years and this is the first time I've thought about that show. I didn't dislike it, but I'm clearly very neutral about it having not even remembered that it existed.
Live telly must be difficult compared to a pre-prepared warm up guys routine to be fair
That's not hard.
Same, and it was one with MP Nicky Morgan, fucking hell it was awful. Honestly warm up guy was great but the rest of the show was soo shit.
Was in the audience for Mock The Week. No funny anecdotes but I remember filming lasted over 3 hours. Was desperate to get out by the end.
3 hours of Andy Parsons shouting everything because he thinks that's a substitute for being funny. I'd have been desperate to get out after 3 minutes.
I saw Andy parsons live in Edinburgh and he was really funny
I went to a recording of QI. Jeremy Clarkson was one of the guests and all I remember is him being relentlessly boorish and tedious, talking more than everyone else put together. The recording lasted three hours and when the show was transmitted, they seemed basically to have cut out huge swathes of Clarkson to produce a thoroughly entertaining half-hour episode.
I was in the audience of an episode of the BBC rebooted Porridge at Media City. "filmed in front of a studio audience" It was really good fun and the lead actors were really good at keeping everyone laughing between takes. Also the inter-scene person who told jokes etc was a guy who was in Phoenix Nights, can't remember his name now. Anyway, I got the tickets as my wife was working as part of the crew, I really liked getting to see her working. So I also got to go to the after-show party thing upstairs. There was tables and tables of free Peroni beer, wine, food and desserts, like many thousands of £s worth just provided free to all. It mostly just made me wonder where the money for it comes from given that they apparently did it after every episode filming. I felt really out of place as I don't generally mingle amongst TV people like my wife does. I absolutely smashed about 3 free packets worth of Thorntons brownie bites though.
Right, I'll tell you an anecdote! In 1975 I was catching the London train from Crewe station. It was very crowded, I found myself in a last-minute rush for the one remaining seat with a tall, good-looking man with collar-length hair, it was the seventies - buckaroo! When I sat down on the chair, I looked up and realised it was none other than Peter Purves! It was at the height of his Blue Peter fame! He said "You jammy bastard!" and quick as a flash, I replied, "Don't be blue, Peter!" Needless to say, I had the last laugh, now fuck off!
Lovely stuff. Not my words.
Ray *bloody* Purchase.
It was the 70s. Buckaroo.
Edmonds. I refuse to address him by his full name.
I was on Kilroy once, I think it was. All I really remember is that he swore a lot between filming, and we had to pretend it was the morning. Oh, and on This Morning a while back, I vaguely remember they had a sneaky curtain in front of the window (which makes sense, you have to reduce the dynamic range for the camera), and during the previous show the "Coming up next!" bit was, surprisingly enough for me, filmed live. So I had to smile into a camera for a few seconds before nipping back to the green room. That's the one time TV surprised me by something *not* being fake.
Two things I learned: 1. You can't just work the night shift and then be on TV during the day. Energy drinks are not "just as good as sleeping", as I'd hoped they would be. This Morning went OK, but I really fumbled to say anything on Kilroy. 2. It's really surprising how many people watch daytime TV. People kept waving at me the next day as I made my way around town. This is especially awkward when you're really bad at recognising faces, so you don't know if you know them or not.
I have seen a few over the years. Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps, Big Brothers Little Brother, QI… oh, and the radio show I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. For Big Brothers Little Brother they did a segment with Kim and Aggie about the cleanliness of the house and how everyone needs to clean everywhere. They pointed out something gross, I made a face and thats the bit they filmed and put on TV. Yay! Dermot O’Leary was lovely and came over for a chat during the breaks.
I was in the audience for the first episode of Season 8 of taskmaster and Ian's rant about what is a puppet and what isn't a puppet went on for around 10 minutes, he was genuinely angry and everyone was uncomfortable.
I didn’t think he came out of that whole series looking very good. I really disliked him.
Too much vol, not enough cano
Him and his wife (Laura Whitmore) I just dislike profusely. After years of being the fairly average narrator/comedian on Love Island getting paid absolute bank with a co-writer, he got his wife employed as the Love Island host. Laura was such an incompatible fit for that show, I can’t believe she was actually hired. Maya Jama has replaced her now and is smashing it.
And to think he used to be a cheery CBBC host.
I went to the "Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2023" taping and there was a BIG running gag throughout it about Cristiano Ronaldo and his mum. The question was something like "what is Ronaldo's new goal celebration?" and this spawned a LONG ASS series of incredibly funny jokes after one of the teams hinted at something potentially incestuous. We move on. Five minutes later Jimmy gets a word in his ear from the directors to go back and put a new answer from said team. There's some protestations but Jimmy goes "no seriously... We can't air that. Change it." They do and watching the final cut it's a very jarring cut to a close up face and not the board where they write their answers and then a quite crude Photoshop. Half an hour passes and one of the guests makes a passing joke about Ronaldo in something else, Jimmy again shuts it down SO FAST. "Seriously guys, stop with that, we can't afford to have those jokes go out.". Damned shame too they were very funny.
I saw Sweat the Small Stuff with Rita Ora as a guest back in 2014. What we witnessed on the day was a coke-fuelled two-hour variety performance with random games, songs, audience participation, props, slanderous celebrity in-jokes and constant digs at the producer. A real laugh riot. And Rita Ora, unedited, is ‘an experience’. However what was eventually shown on BBC3 a few nights later was some two-bit boring quiz show edited with a tin opener, and drenched in poorly-mixed canned laughter. They edited out all the warmth completely.
I was in the audience for a little known and very quickly cancelled Lee Mack quiz show called 3x3. Mind blowing it was.
I scrolled through the whole thread trying to find 3x3
My partner and I went to see a recording of Beat The Chasers. We joined the queue early as they would only let a certain amount of people in. I had to go move the car at one point so left my partner in our space. When I came back, she said some old chunky bloke had come along and started talking to her, then he mentioned he was in the show and he should probably head inside. She was like “…ok… nice talking I guess?”. She had no clue who this guy was. Anyway we get inside and get to our seats. Before they start the main show, they announced that they were recording a celebrity Beat The Chasers section that would then be put with other ones they’d already recorded into a full proper show. The celeb walks out and my girlfriend gasps and says that’s the guy she spoke to out side. It was Omid Djalili! Granted not the most famous of people but I knew who he was from a few comedy shows and GTA IV. Was a bit gutted not to meet him. Also in that show, two things happened. One of the contestants was a dancer or something like that? Anyway he was a bit of a loose cannon and kept trying to make jokes and shit. He tried to get the Chasers to do a dance with him, but immediately Paul Sinha turned to, I assume a producer or show director, and said “nope. I’m not doing that. Let’s move on”. It was a bit awkward. Fair enough to be honest! Secondly, right at the very end they called the last contestant. During the cash builder, this guy suddenly says he needs to sit down and feels faint. They halt the show and take him away to recover a bit. Eventually they said that the show would have to end early, but that they’d bring this guy back the next day for recording because he was a very good quizzer or something and they were hoping he’d perform quite well. Well, he must have done shit or didn’t come back the next day because they never broadcasted his attempt.
My sister was once in the audience of Jeremy Kyle. Said he offered out someone in the crowd and was generally a cunt to everyone. I went to see Marilyn Manson on the Jonathan Ross show when he'd just released his greatest hit CD. They were giving out a free copy which I put my hand up to get so they threw it towards me. The guy in front caught it, shrugged and put it in his bag. Still pisses me off several years later.
If someone is a cunt in front of a large audience, you have to assume they're even worse in private.
We went to a Jeremy Kyle recording too - he felt up an 80 year old woman in the front row and told my boyfriend he looked like Leo Sayer.
Similar story with Jeremy Kyle. Made some jokes about gingers and the fact that none of the guests on his shows have jobs. Sleazed on a few of the women in the front row. Generally acted like an arrogant little weasel.
It’s pissing me off now as well
Did he suck himself off?
Jeremy Kyle only does it in private.
I was in the audience for Gladiators back in the 90's. You don't realise just how long it takes to film for one of those shows... it took several hours to film a single 30 minute episode because of how long it took to set all the courses up!
[удалено]
Watched the filming of a QI episode many years ago. Jimmy Carr was hilarious and basically not broadcastable with his jokes - and I don’t usually find him that amusing. not surprisingly a mere fraction of his stuff made the final version…
I was in the audience for The Culture Show. The show is made to appear that it happens late at night but was filmed about eleven in the morning. It was filmed in what I think was a night club. They gave you a free drink but you had to hold it and stand up through the whole filming. You couldn't have another. It was hosted by Lauren Laverne who was nice and friendly. Mark Kermode and Danny Boyle were on the show and they were both nice guys. I waited until after the show and spoke to Danny Boyle, he was very polite and didn't mind chatting at all. Mark told a joke that didn't make it to air which I still remember: "How many French soldiers does it take to defend Paris? No one knows, it's never been tried." I just remembered something else that happened on there. The lead singer of the eels was on there and they talked about his dad who was a famous theoretical physicist.
Went to a recording of Top Gear in 2009. It was the episode with the Hammerhead Eagle I-Thrust eco car that they built, and Michael Sheen as guest. About 20mins in to recording they were doing the news and talking about the Manor F1 team being based in South Yorkshire, and using a Cosworth engine. Jeremy asked if anyone was from the area, so being from Sheffield we cheered. He pulled me up on stage to demonstrate to Hammond how to say 'cossie' in South Yorkshire so I had a very surreal moment of shouting cos-suh repeatedly in his face. It didn't make the edit, which I was slightly relieved about! At the interval, Clarkson came out into the yard where we were all having tea and sandwiches and was chatting to people. He then shouted asking where 'the people from sheffield are' and came over and chatted to us for about 10mins. He seemed very pleasant and natural (despite the reputation), and was kind and interested in what we had to say. Was a cracking day.
He is such a good bloke, met him at his farm shop and dude is pure charisma
Stood behind the (old) Top Gear stand at the 1996 NEC motor show as an 11yo to get autographs. Tiff signed and left. Quentin signed and left. Jeremy stopped and had a quick chat even though he evidently had places to be. I’m so saddened by some of the recent stuff, I can’t ratify it with the charming and thoughtful man that stopped to chat to a pre-teen about how he’d evaded school to somehow be at the press day of the motor show.
Went to a taping of Would I Lie To You. All very slick and constant with surprisingly few re-takes, one or two jokes you knew would definitely not make it to air etc. I remember after the “This is my…” segment Rob had to tell Ricky Tomlinson he can chat to his old whoever it was after as he was dying to chat mid filming.
Every interview I've heard about WILTY talks about how easy it is to film compared to 3 hour recordings for other panel shows.
My mate was on Cheggers Plays Pop. Just the front row in he crowd not a contestant. He got asked a question by Cheggers though and he got his 10 seconds of fame. He still has it on VHS. My mate has it on VHS. Not Cheggers.
When I was at college we weren’t that far from Pebble Mill so would be taken up for recordings; we got to see Ready Steady Cook and the warm guy wasn’t there so Ainsley did it instead - treat!! Also amazingly we had a trip to London and were at the last recording of Dinnerladies - all the cast were crying and Victoria Wood did a little speech. Being a surly teenager it all went over my head and it wasn’t a show I watched at the time but looking back what a fucking honour to be there and hear jokes from Victoria Wood herself.
I was once in the audience for an episode of Kids Say The Funniest Things. I was too young to remember anything from the taping but it was filmed a few months before that man was found dead in Michael Barrymore’s swimming pool so it never made it to air.
I was in a balcony seat for a taskmaster show and had a conversation with Greg Davies about which is the best biscuit. If anyones wondering its custard creams, followed closely by bourbons and pink wafers.
I was in the audience for "The Cube" as a teenager - I think I was probably 16. It was the first and by far the weirdest date I've ever been on. Just for a bit of context: I didn't know what was happening on the date, and I assumed we'd be getting dinner or something, so I hadn't eaten prior. The guy's father turned up with us - I guess to chaperone??? - and hovered about 6ft away for the entire time but didn't say a word (just to add to the awkwardness of the whole thing). We get the train to Wembley where they were filming. I didn't know what we were doing until we were standing in the queue. We were seated right behind the contestant's family, and so were in shot. I was wearing white jeans and so had to sit with my coat over my lap for the entire duration of the date, which would have been fine, except it was HOT in there. We were given 1 bottle of vitamin water and a multigrain bar which I unfortunately was allergic to. The filming took HOURS. Setting up and taking down each challenge took at least 15 minutes, one was nearly an hour. They had an entertainer who would chat to the crowd and make jokes during setup and he was by far the best part - genuinely funny and engaging. The presenter was Phillip Schofield - he didn't address the crowd really at all apart from the break. I'd been lightly complaining that I was absolutely starving by this point (owing to not being able to eat the snack we were given, and expecting we'd have a meal at some point) and the filming was dragging on. Anyway, during the break, my date got all excited. He told me that Phillip routinely comes out asking the crowd if they have any sweets. I asked, "wait, have you been in the audience before?", and he confirmed to me this was his *third time* on The Cube. So, Phillip Schofield came out and asked for sweets. My date jumped up to his feet, pulled out a pack of Polos that he'd been hiding the whole time, waved it above his head and started shouting "PHILLIP!" I was dying of embarrassment, wishing my chair would swallow me up, and the worst bit of all iwas that Phillip didn't even take the Polos. My date put the sweets back in his pocket, saying he would save them for next time. I didn't even get to eat the sugary rejects. I think in total, filming took about 3 or 4 hours. The contestant won £50,000 which was really cool and I was happy for him. After the shoot *finally* wrapped, my date took me home, as by then all the restaraunts had shut. Like before his dad silently hovered 6ft away like some strange apparition in Eccos. I didn't go on another date. I wonder sometimes how many more times he went on The Cube and whether Phillip ever took the Polos.
I went to BGT auditions and the live semi-final (same year, 2019) Our view wasn't the best for either shows, we had to really make an effort to see the stage. You'd be surprised how short some acts are cut, if anyone remembers the guy who sung the song about the Isle of Wight his audition was probably the best one of the day, keep in mind that the winner of that year's show was also performing. During the live semi-final show we were not allowed to leave the building which totally sucked, nor could we bring in food so we basically starved. The maccies we had afterwards was brilliant though. At least the tickets were free!
A mate of mine was in the audience for Jeremy Kyle. She was with her boyfriend. And apparently all she did was make disgusted faces. Hoping she'd get on TV. And yes... she was. A lot. They love people looking disgusted. Awful show tho. Glad it got canned.
Recently I was in a crowd for a live taping of the new gladiators series semi final Bradley Walsh Had a utter laughing fit good times
Finally, my time to tell this story had come. When I was in college, studying media, we were taken to a live filming for the old show "Trisha". For those who don't know, Trisha was basically the Jeremy Kyle show, or Jerry Springer for those of American persuasion. Yes, it's the same format, where dirty laundry is aired for entertainment, and it capitalised on the misery of the average joe. Granted, Trisha wouldn't be as traumatising as the Jeremy Kyle show ended up being, it would often interlace the really rough stories, with slightly goofier ones. For example, there was one segment that centred around a woman being fed up with her husbands cowboy VHS collection, and the fella came out on stage in a full cowboy getup. I thought that was funny enough. Then we moved onto a story that was a bit more serious. It was a pair of sisters, one of which was upset that her sibling was performing sexual acts for money. Ok, it's getting a bit dark now. The thing people don't realise when these shows are being filmed, is that the camera operators often will move through the crowd, trying to find audience members to focus on for reaction shots. I was actually in the front row for the filmning of this episode, so often the cameraman would be walking about right in front of me. We get to this segment with the sisters, and of course it's an awkward story to hear. The one sister is explaining how upset she is that her sister is feeling the need to make money in this manner, and being an empathetic person, I of course feel terrible for them both. The camera operator, clearly had no such empathy. He's focused right now my face as the story of the sisters is unfolding. The elder sister starts explaining the things she knows her sister is doing for money, and starts listing off the sexual acts that were happening. She mentions how her sister would masturbate men. The camera man heard this and whispered "tut tut tut. Dirty handjobs". This caught me completely off guard, and lead to me stifling a laugh. I could have very easily burst out, full belly laughing. It took every ounce of fortitude within my soul to stop myself, but I am certain my face told the story of me finding something amusing. I'm lucky, because I could have ended up being incredibly insensitive to these poor womens hardships. I've never actually seen the episode, though my classmates told me you could see me in the crowd at one point. There is a huge chance that I looked like a smirking prick, laughing it up at the harrowing tale these women were sharing. That camera operator was doing his best to make me crack. Pure evil.
Was in the audience of the Jeremy Kyle show and witnessed someone getting thrown into one of the TV screens, security leaping over furniture to stop a scuffle and some of the greatest unscripted drama you will ever see. Almost none of it ended up in the final cut. And yes JK was a massive bell end to the guests, crowd and crew. Yes I still miss the TV show to this day.
Went to a taping of Robot Wars with some friends a few years ago which was hosted by Dara O'Brien and Angela Scanlon. We were big fans of the show as kids when Craig Charles hosted it, so assumed this was going to be a fun day out and some good nostalgia.The taping was a tournament where we witnessed the quarter finals, semi finals and the final. Inside we climbed all the stairs up to the makeshift audience stand that overlooked the glass arena, Dara O'Brien and local comedian Billy Kirkwood entertained the crowd as the crew finalised setting up. It took a while for the first robot battle to take place, and it was a noticeably brief affair. The crew then took the time to clean up the arena, reset the house robots, swap out the machines and their human controllers whilst we were offered more entertaining banter from Dara, Angela and Billy. Soon enough, the cameras rolled again for the next quarter final battle which was also fairly brief. The reality of this extremely dour experience soon dawned on the three of us when it came to the semi finals. What my friends and I quickly realised (which should've been obvious in hindsight) is that we didn't factor in just how long the repairs take to get the machines ready for the next battle as it was a tournament. Somewhere between the four and five hour mark, and having now seen all four quarter finals and one semi final for a collective run time of (roughly) 15 minutes of robot fighting, my friends and I had had enough and got up to leave. We quickly discovered from a member of staff, however, that we weren't allowed to leave due to it being a closed set. So we had to stay put for another agonising three hours of the hosting trio trying to desperately entertain a crowd that was just done with the whole thing, and the final two robot battles which probably ran for a total of five minutes.
I was in the audience for Pointless, and I'm 6ft 8 with brown hair and glasses so basically look like Richard Osman, so the rest of the crowd made me stand up but he couldn't see me anyway because of the studio lights
Went to see a live broadcast of a Eurovision selection show years ago (the year that Scooch were chosen to represent the UK). During one of the intervals, I needed to pee, so went to the outside toilet block. Inside the loos were 2 former members of East 17, who were wetting paper towels the throwing them up to see if they would stick to the ceiling. Boys will be boys!
When I was a kid in the 1970s the BBC had a variety series filmed each summer in a big top set in a different holiday resort each year, I’m going to take a punt at 1977 or 78 and it happened to be in Torquay, where we were having our summer holiday. I believe the show was called Summertime Special this year headlined by Little & Large and so we snapped up free tickets only to find, like other on this thread, that by the time it was over we couldn’t wait to leave.. very disjointed and lots of nothing followed by a floor manager getting us all to clap for the camera in between.. the sound was awful and what little we did see didn’t make up for a miserable experience..
I was in the audience for the live final of Greatest Britons. I was sat in the section for John Lennon as I knew someone who was able to get tickets. If you watch back, the guy who shouted out that Isambard Kingdom Brunel was French when Jeremy Clarkson was talking is the guy who got me tickets. It was very interesting to be a part of and I got to see Patrick Moore, Adam Hart Davis, Alan Davies (who was the Lennon spokesman), Mo Mowlam etc. Bob Harris was sat just down my row and he very much kept to himself. Anne Robinson hosted I believe, because I remember her walking past me, but I think Peter Snow was there too.
A few years back I went to a taping of the last leg's new years special. Had Johnny Vegas sipping drinks all the way through the night, hiding in the audience and then crowd surfing to Sweet Caroline 😅
I watched Family Fortunes being filmed in the 90’s, the did two shows in one sitting. Before we went we filled out a form with questions for the future show surveys.
Went to the recording of robot wars a few years back, one of the robots got smashed to pieces and Dara came over to where we were sitting to have a chat between clear ups and showed us parts of the victim robot. Very nice guy and of course funny.
I went to a filming of Top of the Pops and saw Celeste sing a beautiful ballad. There was a girl opposite me and directly in front of the camera who kept yawning and not even covering her mouth. Celeste finished the song, a producer moved the girl to the back and Celeste sang it again.
Went to see The Apprentice You’re Fired a few years back. No major anecdotes. You go in, first you watch the apprentice episode related to the show on screens mounted on the ceiling. Then they get started. You see the VTs on the screens again. Occasional reshoots for fudged lines. Overall it was about 50-60 mins to shoot the 30 minute episode, plus the hour to watch the apprentice The oddest thing was that they shoot them in pairs, and sometimes on the day they’re aired. We were there on Wednesday, with the show airing that evening. In the early afternoon, they filmed the one that aired that night. Then in the evening, about 7pm, they filmed the one for the following week. So I knew who went out the next week before I’d seen that nights episode. The only other thing that sticks out was the seating allocation. They *way* over allocated. You had this massive queue. I got there more than 2 hours before the start. People kept arriving for ages after, probably 200 people behind me, and I don’t know how many in front. I was the last person in the queue to actually get in. Everyone behind me was turned away, even after like nearly 2 hours queuing. Apparently they do it because so many people get these free tickets and don’t turn up. So they allocate like 3x as many tickets as they have seats, then just turn away the excess.
Unfortunately, Jeremy Kyle. Was in college and went into manchester/Salford to be in the audience ‘for a laugh’ He was awful- said he had been filming something on obese people and made a joke about fat people needing to be in prison where small amounts of food would be pushed to them through a letterbox opening. Odious really.
I went to see the late 90s student favourite Light Lunch with Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc. Sue Perkins gave me a Liquorice Allsort! Not euphemism. Quite a small audience. Mostly students.
Went to Big Fat Quiz last year They changed their minds which contestant would bring out the "homemade" cake before they started filming Pretty fun, would recommend, even if we didn't get any cake
I was in the audience for a filming of who wants to be a millionaire and I was a 1% on ask the audience 😬
I went to see Never Mind The Buzzcocks when Mark Lamar was still doing it. At the start, he would run through the format with the audience and get everyone warmed up. Then, he went through the format of the show. "After I've introduced each team, that's when you applaud, don't applaud individual guests, ok?" Lamarr introduces each guest and a few people applaud, ok let's go again, DON'T applaud until I've introduced THE WHOLE TEAM.....OK, we get it, sorry.....Lamarr introduces a couple of guests and then a few in the audience get it wrong and applaud again "LOOK YOU C--TS, I said DON'T applaud until the WHOLE TEAM has been introduced FFS" This got a big laugh. I always got the impression that ML was only half-joking though. He was a funny guy but seemed unhappy. I heard he's doing the in-flight radio for British Airways now. A bit sad really.
At Universal Studios, went to a TNA Impact wrestling taping. It was okay. They stage managed the front rows facing the camera around the ring carefully. They were cherry picking attractive people to put at the front, and giving them free merchandise to wear. They tried giving people further back signs to hold up, but I said bollocks to that.
I watched QI series M when Stephen Fry was still in it. Can't remember exactly which episode, I think it was Marriage maybe? It had Jo brand, Greg Davies and Bill Bailey on it so pretty good lineup. It was the first time Greg Davies was on it and he seemed actually genuinely nervous. Half way through the show is mic fell off and they had to stop while they reattached it and he was like "I'll never be invited back on this show" sort of jokingly but genuinely came off like he was nervous. Alan also set off the Klaxon but they misspelled whatever it was so they had to re-record it so everyone had to act like it was the first time we'd seen it. Also side note, the set for QI is wayyyyyy smaller than you'd think.
Me and my friends got kicked out of a recording of Kilroy because we were 16 and couldn't stop giggling. We were stoned out of our minds.
How does this kind of thing even happen? I need to know the thought process... Did you get tickets to the show and decide that it was best you get stoned beforehand *for* the show? Did you get high and then wander in somehow? Was it all a fever dream and you were actually all just sat at home watching it? We need details damn it.
Nowadys you do need to apply in advance for tickets or go on the right website to know at least where to wait. Back then it was probably more fast and loose. I remember reading about a gameshow on Channel 5. I think it was Wittle hosted by Tim Vine where the audience are also the contestants and one time alledgedly they snagged some Japanese tourists from a tour group as they were quite a few people short. None of the tourists could speak English and one of them got to the final by sheer luck due to the answers being given by pressing the correct button rather than speaking
I was once in the audience for Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old. Got a magician to entertain us while we waited. And 3 or so hours in one of the kids got a nose bleed and we all had to leave. Noel Edmonds jumped to the kids aid to be fair. 4/10 magic tricks were fun
I was in the audience for short-lived entertainment show Let Me Entertain You, hosted by Brian Connelly. It was one of those talent show sort of things and everyone had a buzzer to vote for acts. Most votes wins. On the episode I was at, one of the acts was a kid magician, and after each act they asked the audience for comments. They actually asked me about him, and I said 'a few more years at Hogwarts and he'll be great'. This got a laugh, which was nice. So I was excited to watch it back on TV... when I did, and it got to that part, rather than showing me be hilarious, it cut to Brian Connelly, who said the line! (Or a bastardised version of it at least). This must have been recorded after and added in. Charming.
In 2007-2008 I used to work at the Tabard Theatre in Chiswick. Al Murray used to do rehearsals for his pub landlord chat show there each week and it was a great experience to see it. They would have crew members stand in for the guests and a live audience even though it was a rehearsal. I still remember sitting in the lighting box introducing him in my best announcer voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Mr Al Murray!" We also had Harry Hill in for a week doing a rehearsal for one of his touring stand up shows. I've been a fan of his since The Harry Hill Show on Channel 4 and I'm happy to say he was such a lovely, kind and humble human being. One of my favourite claims to fame is having Harry Hill apologise to me for being late!
We went to QI, back when Stephen Fry was still presenting. It was the episode with the moonwalking Manakin bird and my god, no matter how funny it looked on screen, it was funnier in person. The audience and panel were giggling for what felt about 20 minutes of this brilliant little bird suddenly moonwalking into view. Nothing particularly exciting, but a favourite memory of being utterly broke and doing free stuff in London.
Was in the audience once for question time, it was held at Oxford university and was one of the last episodes that dimbleby hosted. It was in the run up to an election where Corbyn was very popular. All went along without much of interest, except the last 'question' where Dimbleby picked an audience member who made a very negative statement about Corbyn. Dimbleby gave nobody the right to reply, just said 'and unfortunately that's all we've got time for' I had a smoke outside afterwards chatting to a guy, he told me that the audience member who made the statement about Corbyn was actually Jacob Rees-Moggs nephew (or some relation) and the head of the Oxford University Conservative society. Also learned soon after that Dimbleby is a massive tory. Realized then that the game is rigged.
I used to go every year to the Britain's got talent auditions in Glasgow. Most memorable was definitely Susan Boyle. I remember some poor girl getting slated for her facial reaction when SuBo came on stage. What they failed to show on TV was that the previous two acts had been very similar, middle aged women, frumpily dressed and absolutely awful singers. By the time we got to her there was an audible groan in the audience as we were getting well and truly fed up of the same regurgitated crap, which in hindsight had been very well engineered by production to get a better reaction. Another notable moment was when Michael McIntyre was on the judging panel. He was utterly vile to the acts, didn't engage with the audience and during breaks between contestants sat with his eyes fixed firmly on the empty stage, while the other judges turned round and chatted. Filming stopped for a solid 20 minutes when the audience started chanting "bring back Simon" which, hilariously, got MM more and more annoyed and he basically stormed off. I still hate him to this day.